#and HUMAN!!! not a hockey robot!!!! huge

[starscelly]

a lot of otter being cool and very human i think is just His Nature but also fucking shout out his mobility coach for being so vocal about the fact that she is training him with the constant message that he is Human he is not a machine to play hockey and quit when he is broken. she’s so cool and i’m so glad there are ppl working with nhlers like this (some longer captions from her below the cut)

[toomoonfic]

AO3 Tag Game

Thank you for the tag @dimplesandfierceeyes! I really enjoyed this trip down memory lane.

1. How many works do you have on AO3?

So across my main account (jjjat3am, toomoon, boneflower, yvenger) + my hockey account (savedby), I've somehow managed 283 works.

2. What is your AO3 wordcount?

901 767 words. Getting closer to that million, huh.

3. What fandoms do you write for?

Ah, tricky question. Right now I'm writing mostly in the Thai BL fandom, if I can label it that way. According to my dashboards, I've written across 59 different fandoms.

4. What are your top 5 fics by kudos?

1. you're not a ghost (I'm not afraid of you) - KinnPorsche, Arm/Tankhun 2. safe (right here in your arms) - KinnPorsche, Arm/Tankhun 3. devil is in the details - KinnPorsche, VegasPete 4. how does a penguin build his house? - Hockey RPF, Crosby/Malkin 5. this life (all I know) - Black Panther, M'Baku/Killmonger

Is it weird that I didn't realize that my KinnPorsche fics had gotten so much traction? But I guess it just proves what a huge fandom that was that a rare pairing got over 2k kudos in the case of ghost.

5. Do you respond to comments?

I try to! I feel like communication with your reader is integral to building your community, and that's why I'm grateful to everyone that reaches out to me. I've noticed that I don't do it as much when my mental health takes a nosedive, which is why I still owe people replies from last year. I'm still doing it, but I hope it's not weird that people are getting replies like a year later.

6. What is the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending?

I'm fairly allergic to angsty endings, so it took me a while of searching to get something that might fit this criteria. I'll go with some things never change, which is an Almost Human fanfic, so that's a definite throwback. It features robot death and I remember I exorcised some demons with it for sure.

7. What is the fic you wrote with the happiest ending?

Pretty much everything else? Just looking at some of the last things I've posted, holding on to patience (like a sunrise) my DBD fic was pretty much a typical Julija happy ending. In general that story is a very typical Julija fic start to finish.

8. Do you get hate on fics?

Not anymore, thank fuck. I did have a stalker back when I started posting hockey fic, that's why I made a whole other account, but that seems to have died down.

9. Do you write smut? If so, which kind?

I've written 12 explicit fics in total, which is just funny when you think about it. The conditions have to really be perfect for me to be able to produce, and when I do, weirdly, it's mostly like, awkward handjobs I guess. I haven't mastered the art of the smut fic yet and likely never will.

10. Do you write crossovers? What’s the craziest crossover you’ve ever written?

Don't do this to me. There's only one fic I've posted that I'm genuinely embarrassed to speak about and this is it.

11. Have you ever had a fic stolen?

I don't think so.

12. Have you ever had a fic translated?

Yes! It's always a joy.

13. Have you ever co-written a fic before?

I have! Take a Chance on Me was written with @zevons and it's so close to my heart. I've done a bunch of collabs and I love them all, not just for the story but just for the connection with another author.

14. What’s your all-time favourite ship?

This is also a difficult question for someone as disloyal as me...

I think ToddBlack has such a hold on me to this day, and it's still not totally let me go, so I'll go with that, their dynamic is so compelling to me.

15. What’s a WIP you want to finish but doubt you ever will?

on the bridge between water and clay is never getting another chapter unless I decide that I'm really into Naruto again, which, okay, stranger things have happened I suppose.

16. What are your writing strengths?

I think I'm just the funniest person who's ever picked up a pen, personally. Strangely some people don't agree?? Weird.

I don't know, I never have a witty answer to this particular question, so funny is what I default to, because the funny moments in my fics are the ones that always stay most memorable to me.

17. What are your writing weaknesses?

Oh, descriptions for sure. Things like setting and what people are wearing, and the little details that really transport you to the place in a story. I don't really notice details like that in every day life so there's nothing I can base this on to improve myself.

18. Thoughts on writing dialogue in another language in fic?

I don't have many thoughts, I try to generally avoid it.

19. First fandom you wrote for?

I think it must have been Lord of the Rings.

20. Favourite fic you’ve written?

I posted hung from ladders last year and I'd have to say it's my favorite thing that I've written in a very long time. It's a horror fic I suppose, but at its core it's a story about grief and how you deal with it, and I think in so many ways I was more honest in it than I anticipated I would be. I love it for what it represented for me in that moment but I also love that while not that many people read it, I think that it really impacted the people that did and through that I really felt that sense of community that I hadn't really felt in a long time.

I don't really connect with that many people on this website, so I'm not up to date on who writes and who doesn't, but I'm tagging a few people anyway, hopefully this isn't one you've done before:

@tungtung-thanawat, @mightymightygnomepriest @grasspetty @returning-spring

[secretcircuit]

6, 8, 16, 19, 20, 25, 28, and 30!

YAY thank u !!

6. Anything that might inspire you subconsciously (i.e. this horse wasn’t supposed to look like the Last Unicorn but I see it)

this is tricky for me to answer! i feel like my artistic inspirations are things that i know (im curious what other ppl think they are...) for the most part... so i guess i dont know if i have an answer for this ! maybe other ppl do?? one time i drew a portrait of myself that looked like a wikihow illustration skdfjskfjskdjf but that was an accident

8. What’s an old project idea that you’ve lost interest in

so i started to answer this but then realized im still interested in that project skdjfksj ... ooh i know ! i used to draw this character (unnamed) with a computer monitor for a head and a human body -- because at the time i felt like people understood me to be a machine or robot-like when in fact i had a lot of feelings... so it was going to be a comic about them navigating through life with this huge disconnect... thankfully i have friends now who dont make me feel like that, so i dont feel the need to revisit it :')

(also side note i feel like ive seen comics / manga (or something?) with a design just like this since ???)

16. Something you are good at but don’t really have fun doing

this is making me realize that i like most of the things im good at, which makes me wonder if maybe i shy away from doing things im NOT good at (even if i dont like them)? i will have to ponder... i mean i guess i am passably good at drawing Mechanically Complex(ish) Things (e.g. bicycles or w/e) but find them really boring. im not interested in things that are symmetrical or engineered... (computers dont count; they are just lil boxes visually)

19. Favorite inanimate objects to draw (food, nature, etc.)

OOH so many things... i love drawing botanical stuff. i dont actually post much of it on here i guess? but i do a LOT of plant studies / drawings for people :) not to sound like a jock but i also really like drawing sports equipment?? it's fun in general and also when i draw it on people it helps with posing etc. skateboards, hockey sticks, that sort of thing. i do also enjoy drawing computers. and like... i guess they arent Objects but i like drawing interiors in general... trying to make spaces lived in etc. oh furniture is kinda fun to do... but yeah plants / botanicals are at the top of the list :)

20. Something everyone else finds hard to draw but you enjoy

people often remark that they find it hard to hatch/crosshatch the way i do? but it's just how i shade, and i like it; it's fun to do... people in motion ? hands? (dont get me wrong i also find them hard to draw but i do enjoy them.)

25. Something your art has been compared to that you were NOT inspired by

AHA well one time i posted a fanart piece of kakashi that i had done in acrylics as my fb profile picture (LOL... like we are talking 10-min study, not an actual polished piece) and someone said it looked like van gogh which ... was very funny to me? especially bc i dont feel like my style is similar to van gogh's otherwise. (and we are talking like - family friend commenting on fb. so.) ive also had ppl say that my art reminds them of alison bechdel's (which i consider to be a compliment; i love her comic style), but i had already pretty much solidified my style before reading dtwof so...

28. Any art events you have participated in the past (like zines)

i have never participated in a zine! i used to do inktober before the creator of it revealed himself 2 be super shitty. honestly the main reason i dont do zines is that i do exclusively traditional art and im lazy and dont feel like going 2 the effort of scanning / editing / etc... but also i would really like to? ive also thought about making my own zines, but thats not really an Event. i did in fact make one abt vampires... anyway

30. What piece of yours do you think is underrated

one of the orufrey pieces i did where theyre like abt to kiss after hours in the atelier... LISTEN. i used to dislike doing backgrounds but i put a lot of work into that one! i literally referenced how the couch looks based on the handful of manga chapters where it shows up!!!!!! i will live tho. honestly i have been pleasantly surprised with how much some of my art has been shared on here :')

art asks

[cozy-possum]

Love Death and Robots ‘Season’ 3

Overall thoughts (spoiler free) and per episode (spoilers) below the cut

Overall:

Much preferred the varied visuals to the second season, it felt like there was so much obvious cgi/3d stuff in the second one many blended together. Each of the stories were interesting and captivating in their own way. I enjoyed bringing back the robots from series one. The soundtrack for all the shorts was really good

Trigger warnings: 

Three robots (dead bodies, dried blood, doomsday prepers)

Bad Travelling: Blood, gore, dead bodies, mutilation, murder, vomit

The Very pulse of the machine: Gore, dead body, blood, hallucinations, unreality, space

Night of the mini dead: sex, blood, zombies, death, war, nuclear threat

Kill team Kill: nuditiy, war, guns/weapons, blood, dead bodies

Swarm: Aliens, bugs (bug like aliens mostly beetle-esque) trypophobia, sex, body horror, blood, gore, vomit

Mason’s rats: Rats, guns, war, blood, dead bodies (rats) flashing lights (lasers) alcohol

In Vaulted Halls Entombed: war, guns/weapons, fighting, spider/bugs, gore, blood, body horror

Jibaro: Unreality, blood, violence, drowning, screaming/distorted sounds, reching/gagging, death, assault, gore

Three Robots: Exit Strategies: I enjoyed the tour around the various survival attempts of humans in the post-apocalyptic world. The humor and little digs at humans was cute and clever, a few of them could have been left off. Love how that one robot kept switching his hat. I also enjoyed how Elena clearly wasn’t as aware enough to know they were other robots. ‘Democratic cannibalism’ that’s an interesting concept, did they have reports on who was doing the best/worst? would it have gone farther than the secretary of Agriculture? Why is this US based, would love to see them going to other parts of the world at some point

Bad Travelling: Very visibly dark, made it hard to focus on the short. Enjoyed that the ‘monster’ was a big crab, it makes sense for it being in the ocean, can all of them speak like the one on the ship? I really liked the animation for this one. While very obvious cgi/3d it felt similar to the Secret wars from season one. Okay the little baby thanopods were cute. Did enjoy the twists of everyone voting x and Torrin blowing up the ship at the end really interesting.

The Very pulse of the machine: Not a huge fan of the people animation it looked like someone was trying to go for the ‘comic book’ angle but the lines felt too thin combined with the 3d made it look bulbous, the backgrounds and the elctromagnetic/hallucinations are beautiful. So they’re on Io one of Jupiter’s moons, it looks pretty cool. I do enjoy Martha casually arguing with Burton to start the ‘hallucination’ part. Relly enjoyed the ending and the surreal visuals they added.

Night of the mini dead: okay hands down fav episode, I have a weakness for minatures IS THIS A MODEL RAILWAY/TOWN IM GONNA DIE HAPPY NOW, the hockey scene made me cry laughing, in fact this whole short did, the little high pitched helium voices got me THE POPEMOBILE!!!!! the garbage truck zombie killer, ahh toxic waste zombies niceeeee; not the penguins 😭

Kill team Kill: Like the animation style, enjoyed the idea of the terminator grizzly bear, maars-bot is great it’s like stabby on steroids, it was an okay action short, the animation style is what saved it for me, not very interesting otherwise

Swarm:  Ooo centuar aliens they look soft, like a peach. The animation is that hyper realiztic 3d/cgi which I’m not a fan of for humans. I do love a good swarm/hivemind concept, and i’m digging the various alien species seen so far, also hell yeah space fungi!! Not surprised that the swarm took over a human, similar to the thanopod from Bad Travelling, fun horror concept; “intelligence is not a winning survival trait” thats a raw ass quote my dude

Mason’s rats: If Chicken Run and the Rats of NIMH were squashed together but Scottish and with a slightly ‘happier’ ending than i was expecting (well i saw the twist but nice to know it happened) really enjoyable and cute premise and ending

In Vaulted Halls Entombed: more hyper realistic cgi/3d, still not my fav for humans; feeling very generic war/action scene with like ‘spooky elder god’ to mix things up; digging the little spider things, the little faces they had was a cool touch, didn’t really care for the whole “elder god brings vision of end of world thing”

Jibaro: Visually chaotic, there’s a lot going on, cgi and sharp movements and shaky cam all gave me a headache, the cgi of the people got a little too distorted (although I suppose thats the point) the fashion was cool though, although I felt it could have been far shorter, i liked the twist of him gaining his hearing back as a punishment of sorts for what he’d done

[raph-and-spike]

My Hero - Mikey x fem!reader

requested? yes/no

“Well i just found your blog and im super excited to see where this goes! My request is April has a cousin the turtles have heard of but never met and before they finally do she warns them that shes a little reserved, keeps to herself but over time when she warms up shes super dorky and like mikey? Idk if that makes sense. Just some fluffy michelangelo x reader 😅”

a/n: My first request! I was sooo excited for this one! I kinda took it in a different direction, but I tried to keep it as close to your request as possible. I can’t wait to write all of the other requests you guys have sent me!

warnings: none :)

“Oh my God, that movie was crazy!” April exclaimed. 

You had just moved back to New York two weeks prior, and your favorite redheaded cousin invited you to see a movie with her and her boyfriend friend, Casey–much to his dismay–which you’d been thankful for; April was the only person you knew at school. 

As someone who tended to keep to yourself, April was aware of your anti-social tendencies, and she’d do everything to avoid it. She was determined to make New York City actually feel like home. 

“Eh,” Casey shrugged. “It was alright. I don’t really see the hype.”

April rolled her eyes. “Don't pretend that we didn’t see you jump at all the jump-scares, Casey.”

Casey grinned. “You paying attention that closely to me, Red? You must like me or something.”

You couldn’t help but giggle as you watched the two bicker back and forth.

“Shut it, Jones,” she rolled her eyes. 

A crash behind you made the three of you jump and turn around instinctively. Though, nothing could be visible. 

“What the hell was that?” you muttered to yourself. The eery streets of the city at night had yet to make you feel welcome.

Suddenly, what had looked like slender robots in black robes began sprinting toward you three, jumping out behind trash cans and street corners. Your heart sank to your stomach at the scene in front of you, your body frozen in shock.

“Footbots!” April screamed, exchanging looks with Casey. “Casey, get Y/n back home, I’ll handle them!”

Casey raised his eyebrows. “What?! No way, Red! You go home with Y/n, I’ll handle it.” He grabbed one of his hockey sticks and charged at the Footbots, leaving you not knowing what to do.

April grabbed what looked like a steel fan from her pocket and began fighting as well; it was a sight you never thought you’d ever see.

“Y/n, run!” April shouted over the sounds of steel against steel, and hockey sticks against cement.

You began running in the opposite direction of the chaos, in the direction of your home. Though it’d take about another ten minutes to get there, you were eager to do anything you had to get away from what you'd just witnessed.

You weren’t able to get far before one of the robots appeared in front of you, causing you to stumble back onto the cement. Your eyes wide with fear, staring at the huge being towering over you with a sword in hand. As it raised its sword, a blade sliced across its torso with a quickness you would have missed if you weren’t watching so intently. As the robot’s body fell in half onto the pavement in front of you, another being with green skin and a blue mask appeared, holding the katana that had saved your life. 

“Woah,” was all you could manage, staring at it. Green speckled skin, a plastron and a shell...was it a turtle? 

It left, fighting off the rest of the bots with three more that looked just like it, all with different colored masks and different weapons. Your heart was racing, you could feel your body pulsating with the very beat of your heart as the fight ensued. 

“Guys,” one of them spoke up. “Splinter’s not gonna be too happy about another human knowing about us.”

They can talk?

The four turtles and your two friends looked your way as your eyes rolled back and you felt your head hit the pavement before falling into unconsciousness.

You woke up in your bed, your redheaded cousin sitting at the foot of your bed. You groaned, your hand going to the back of your head where gauze had been placed. 

“Y/n,” April began, her voice soft. “We need to talk.”

“What happened last night?” you moaned, your vision spinning as the pain in the back of your head increased.

She grabbed a glass of water on your nightstand and handed it to you.

“Here,” she kept her hands on your own to ensure that you were holding it tight enough, tipping it back as you gulped. 

She stared down at her fingers, fumbling with them. This was a nervous habit you’d remembered your cousin having for as long as you could remember. But why would she be nervous, you thought to yourself. 

“Last night–”

“I saw something,” you interrupted. “Or some things,” you corrected, goosebumps rising along your arms as you thought about the turtles.

April sighed. “I know.”

You furrowed your eyebrows. “What exactly were they? And what was attacking us?”

And so she began.

She told you everything; the turtles, Master Splinter, Shredder, the Kraang, mutagen. It was a moment of trust, a moment of trusting in one of her favorite people–one of the only people she had left.

“And now that you’re going to be living here,” April began.

“Then I should learn how to defend myself,” you finished for her.

She nodded, letting out a sympathetic sigh. “I’m so sorry for dragging you into this.”

You shook your head, grabbing her hands to hold within your own. “’United we stand, divided we fall’,” you quoted, a quote both your parents had said to you multiple times as children. “If you need another addition to your army, then count me in.”

As you both walked through the tunnels of the sewers, you kept your nose plugged.

“Does the smell get any better?” you groaned.

She nodded. “You get used to it; I had to live down here for a few weeks.”

You nearly gagged at the thought, before entering the lair.

There they were, once again. The red masked one was punching a large punching bag, the blue masked one was sitting in front of a television whilst the orange masked one sat next to him, pizza in hand. Pizza?! The fourth one was nowhere in sight. 

April gestured. “Y/n, these are the turtles,” she pointed to the red masked one, “that’s Raph,” she pointed to the blue masked one, “Leo,” she pointed to the orange masked one, “Mikey,” she paused, looking around. 

“Where’s Don-”

“Hi, April!” a voice exclaimed, nearly scurrying over to you both with a blush painted on his cheeks.

She rolled her eyes playfully. “And, that’s Donnie.”

Supposedly, after getting permission to bring you to the lair from Master Splinter, she’d warned them that you were coming. 

Leo looked over, his eyes finally peeling away from his show with a smile. “How’s your head feeling?” he asked, walking toward you.

You shrugged, gently blushing at the sudden attention. “It’s, uh, better now, but I don't think I hit it too hard to begin with.”

“Actually,” Donnie spoke, “the impact wasn’t enough to cause a lot of bleeding, but it'll be bruised for the next couple of days.”

You frowned. “W-were you the one who took care of my head?”

He nodded, invisible eyebrows furrowed in query. 

“Oh, thanks,” you said softly, “it’s healing really fast.”

He blushed, about to say something in return before his orange-masked brother interrupted him by running up to you.

“Well,” Mikey began, “I was the one who saved you a slice of pizza!”

The gang groaned in disgust; the slice of pizza had lint, worms, and an undetectable bug species sitting on top of the cheese. 

“Mikey, did you get that from under your bed?!” Leo scoffed.

Mikey smirked. “Mayybeee,” he eyed the slice. “It’s still good though, I think.”

He grinned at you, but could see the disgust in your appearance. He hung his head. “I guess I’ll just eat it,” he sighed.

You felt horrible, but in all honesty, the sight alone made your stomach churn. 

“Y/n,” you heard, distracting you from the moldy pizza.

You looked up, seeing the one and only Master Splinter. He looked completely different than how you’d pictured him in your head; he was much taller than you expected. He walked closer to you, until you were just feet apart. 

“April has told me a lot about you,” he began, his voice soothing to the ear. “I hope that you fulfill my wish to keep my sons and I a secret.”

You nodded. “Of course, urm, Master Splinter.”

He nodded, before calling the turtles to train with him.

“See you latah, Dudette,” Mikey bid with a wink, before running off to train with his brothers.

April looked at you, an eyebrow cocked at the deep blush on your cheeks.

“What?” you asked shyly.

“Nothing, Dudette,” April mocked with a grin.

You began to spend multiple days of the week at the lair with April and Casey, even bringing your homework down there after school; Master Splinter offered to train you, and you obliged. Mikey would be over your shoulder, asking you questions about your homework even after Leo had told him to give you some personal space. 

But you began to feel comfortable with the turtles, and you started to open up and reveal your personality. 

“Hey Mikey,” you announced, walking up to him in the kitchen. “Want to go train with me?”

You could have sworn that his pupils grew the size of bowling balls, and he was there with his nunchucks in no time.

You began training with the turtles, almost always with Mikey, though he refused to fight back or hit you. You’d share a pizza after, watch television, and eventually take a nap before he’d have to leave for patrol.

“You’re getting so good, Dudette!” he exclaimed after training, shoveling pizza slices into his mouth.

You blushed. “Thanks, Mikey...” You rolled your eyes as you watched him finish the box to himself. “Do we really have to eat pizza everyday?” 

“Yesss,” he said in a sing-song voice. “I love days like this; it’s my two favorite things!”

You furrowed your eyebrows. “What?”

“You and pizza, duh!” 

Your cheeks heated up, and you pressed a kiss onto his green freckled cheek.

“Thanks, Mikey. You know, if it weren't for you and your brothers saving me from those Footbots, then I wouldn't even be here,” you pointed out.

He grinned. “That makes me, like, a hero!”

You planted a kiss onto his lips, causing him to nearly melt into the floor.

“My hero,” you corrected.

[softsweetsuffering]

OC LIST (New)

Trey:

Has an ability to mimic or amplify abilities/powers of others, as well as telekinesis

Was previously part of a group of people who also had abilities, however after mistreatment and other issues within the group, he left.

He's got a good wealth behind him.

Extremely gentle

Handsome ;)

Loves photography

Has lavender hair

Respects all

'Secretly' Plays violin

Lowkey a sugardaddy

Hamrish Benat:

Has four eyes!

Pink and blonde hair

He loves parkour (as in climbing buildings and leaping around in gyms)

Has PTSD (There are two AUS of which I default as to how he obtained it)

Ready to deck a bitch

Trained nurse

Loves teddy bears and fuzzy pink socks.

Also goes by Hami/Hayden

Andy peters:

Strong, kind.

The quiet Big Type, doesn't always talk, but his heart is in good places.

Wishes he could do more

Buff + Tall

Wears a pair of dogtags.

Has red streaks in his hair for the fun of it

Is extremely brotherly to Adrian

is friends with Hami

Adrian Géarán:

Nervous Malnutritioned anxiety filled tired mess

Has emotionally linked fire abilities (does not like having them)

likes to make little robots!

Easily bullied

Missing an arm

Struggles with normal life

Blames himself for Andys death

Looks unintentionally vaguely like Fry from Futurama

Chris:

Leader of a summer camp for kiddos

Huge fan of the outdoors

Loves to garden

Red head with freckles

Healthy!

Good build, a little on the below-average male height

Likes to hike

Loves kids

Strong but pacifistic

Great smile

Surprisingly a little shy around other adults

Bisexual

Himbo energy

Douglas Connelly:

Just a regular chubby guy

His chub is only important because this man gives some of the best hugs, he's like a marshmallow

He is outwardly confident about his size, even if it sometimes worries him internally

He loves music, loves to groove in the kitchen while making snacks

Always open for roommates and new friends (one of his roommates is a hot bartender called Donovan)

A bit awkward but he tries his best.

Tucker:

Badass

Bunny hybrid (ears :3)

White hair

Likes to wear denim jackets

Fast runner

Has had experience working in the force

Izekiel Iris:

Bruised and abused in a facility

Was turned from human into A being of made of Paint (Useful? no. Fun? yes. Rainbow blood anyone?)

Loves painting

Wallflower

Easily anxious

Loves to draw on his own arms

Matthew Libelle:

Aka Matty Very delayed development wise as well as Autistic

Very much a texture lad, soft blankets are his thing.

Doesn't like loud sounds ( who does honestly).

Tries his hardest to function normally but it's hard.

Watermelon colours are his fav. Green hoodie is his fav.

Has watermelon pink hair.

Gale:

Eldritch bab

Was cursed by a group of guys who were messing with magics they didn't understand

Did in fact murder said group of guys and is traumatised by the idea he has become a monster

hears voices

Has Tendrils that have burst out of his back

Has the ability to move from this realm to the Eldritch planes and back. (is terrified of said planes)

Doesn't have a home

Black curly hair- frizzy- shimmers like Slick oil

Shy type kinda, tall Pale. cold.

Kinda wishes he could just go back to normal.

Would really like to eat some fresh warm bread.

Rowan maverick

Was abandoned as a teen

Also known as Rogue/Red.

Lost some of their tongues making them mute

Trained Assassin.

Previously part of a cult

Addict to painkillers (Caused by the mental issues from the cult and the loss of tongue.)

Bad with Physical affection

Could use a friend

Jace

Cop/Ex Cop.

Laid off after an incident

Has a pubby called Otis

Likes the occasional beer

Dad energy

Issac Merewen

Was previously a Teacher - grade 11/12s

Kidnapped and kept Drugged the hell up.

Was given the new name: Jess/Jack. AKA The Jester

Now has Amnesia problems .(Anomic aphasia)

Was stored Cramped in box.

Needs glasses. (Long sighted. Cant see Infront of him for shit without glasses. He specifically likes round ones :3)

Natrually Blonde

He was very inspired by the Chitty Chitty bang bang scene, “Doll on a music box”.

- He naturally has two different coloured eyes :D

-He likes podcast n occasionally audiobooks. Its good for learning/remembering words, and way easier than straining his eyes. Although it is upsetting occasionally when he can remember more of a book/podcast he’s into more than real words or real-life things.

Tyrone Li

Incubus.

Wise, Patient, caring.

Brown tattoos wind up his hips and torso, curling around his chest around his heart, and around his back, flaring at his neck.

Glasses.

Loves plants and flora

Sex lost meaning when he was younger. He wants true intimacy again but he wants to find the right person..

Glamors hide the following features:

Tail, brown that gradients into Green, Leaf like tip.

Horns, curled. (green tipped :0)

Glamors break usually after a certain period of time regardless of feeding, however, during bad situations/fight the body may unglamour to reserve the last of its energy.

Caspian:

Basically immortal but can die (Reincarnations)

Not a pacifist, but not instantly into violence

He was blessed by the Heart of the Ocean (Shes wonderful <3)

Can control water, can do minor healing with water

Can make water bubble/ boil when angry

Glowy veins when powers are active

He has had many many lives

Soft..caring..Doesnt remember alot of his past..

Doesn't know how many times hes died

Doesn't have alot of family or friends

Goes on many adventures

Elio Solren.

Nickname: Sunshine

Good lad.

Is a shapeshifter Dealt with being told he was happy and always upbeat. People leaving or ignoring him whenever he wasn't started building this sense of need to be happy all the time for others.

Lots of struggles with self image. Being perfect. Appeasing everyone. Poor self body love/self body image.

Is scared about The hate from humans about shifters. The jealousy and fear about them being able to hide behind other faces.

Smiles to hide the pain

Punk/hipster vibes

Intricate golden tattoos

Doesn't open up easily

Doesn't like to admit to being in pain

Kotori

AKA Corey

Owl lad!

Bright yellow piercing eyes. But is totally blind. (Face scars)

Loves music.

Plays the uke.. hums..sings sometimes.

Big wings- like barn owl.

Likes to perch in trees

Jeremey Caulfield

Winter baby

Was left bleeding in the snow at some point

Father Lovely old man (John)

Mother died (Ellie)

Birthday December 23h

Blue eyes

Black hair

Russel

Box boy

Glasses

Red hair

Real sweetheart

Really needs more dev ; ;

Jules

Loves tofu n chicken

Touchstarved

Stubborn af

Kicks ass!

Has Sass

Wears binders/sports bras for Lotsa running n such

Black hair big messy pigtails

Dark brown eyes.

Has a navy bear sleeps with it ‘doesn't care’ about it but does

Gymnast/kickboxing. Bandages around hands

Loved swinging bars since being a kiddo

Trampolines!!

Participates in Underground fight ring to make easy money

Sleeps on just a mattress

Has a laptop for study work but she's slowly giving up on bothering.

(She's not one originally but Werewolf Jules is one of my fav things)

Miles

Part mole, part orphan

Lives underground

Very light-sensitive

Is colourblind

Absolute nerd

loves tinkering with things

is scared of humans

very foggy memories of his parents.

Leilah/ Lei

Can make/control shadows.

Owns a Magic skull(Speaks to it)

Lives in the woods

Wears a skull to spook off people from her woods

Has Tattoos that are shadow/absorb shadows

Kinda bad at maintaining friendships

Emotionally Distant

Wears a cloak.

Bao Ketsuyki

Blood magic bab

Short

East Asian.

Pink/red medium length hair

Big pretty red flower scar from blood magic use on her shoulder/ back.

Little bit foolish, little bit reckless.

Has almost died a few times from her magic use.

Oran Audun

Pale

Punk

Irish

Plays Guitar

Writes in journal, occasionally song lyrics, occasionally little messy ink drawings.

Easy to aggravate (On edge) however is trying to learn how to meditate and be calmer

Covered head to toe in scars but still tries to find confidence in himself. He doesn't find it unattractive, but he feels like others have no need to witness his scars.

loves wearing leather/fabric wrist bracelets

Unwelcome hands have used his body as a research object

Very very against physical contact, needs to break into it.

Ray

Social worker works mainly with kids.

Has a Shy guy tattoo.

His family consists of a Good ma, younger sister, and super baby brother

Dad died but dad was good.

Dirty blonde hair, kinda messy

Short, 5’

Socks the pupper is his helpful lil buddy (hes so round and white and fluffy)

Super dad vibes.

Owen

a hockey player n gymnast.

His mother died when he was about 9.

has an older brother who is a bit of a big jock type

quite protective and caring of his two much younger siblings.

ended up in a nasty scuffle though at some point during his more competitive years in Hockey

This leads to following his passion for Gym

Pole vault, the rings, trampoline.

Still plays hockey among mates or strangers on the weekends in the cold months tho

Ends up taking a position as a gym teacher for kids after taking a childhood course since he was so good at it.

actually a really sweet guy

Soft but likes his sport and jokes.

He can hold his own somewhat more than he appears.

has blue tips/stripes in his blonde hair.

He often wears varsity jackets or baseball tees. As well as a couple other sport wear shirts. (A. Good few are from his bro ofc. Free merch)

He's short but he's got a fairly decent build on him.

He's got a surprisingly good tackle if you aren't careful. And a good grip strength.

Nohea

but everyone calls him Noah.

Works at a Boba tea cafe..

likes to surf.

has an Epic board.

Back and shoulders all littered with lines and tic tac toe-like scars.

he's the type to brush off any questions and change topic while smiling. But not super bubbly. Just. Go lucky.

has a few friends who like to hang out at the cafe

Was in a surfing accident that involved a lot of rocks.

Ila

4’8 Soft. Short.

Ready to protect.

Loves to bake!!!

Smells like a vanilla cupcake most of the time

Isn't afraid to fight although isn't trained

likes Yoga ( and yoga pants)

Needs glasses but doesn't wear them (tsk tsk, unless tryign to read recipes)

Dyes hair silver/white

Jake

Homeless

Snake hybrid can transform his lower half from human legs to tail

Also has fangs, and therefore venom

He's got a lot of sass

Can be a bit of an asshole but soft around the right people

Isn't used to kindness

doesn't cry easily

Steals food

Mac Hiato

Also known as Caf

5’6

Very Grumpy.

Very often has bags under his eyes.

Hoodie is life

Insomnia has serious trouble sleeping.

Has nightmares of strangulation

Occasionally sufferers sleep paralysis

Scared of dark- night lights

Owns a mouse called Bean

Does freelancing webdesgisn/coding as job.

Sits like a gay.

Lives on coffee

Minorly Lactose intolerant

Has One bad eye

Neema

Egyptian

Mechanic

Her dad's a mechanic and used to bring her to work all the time

dead mum: which affected her ability to emote.

Works part time at the garage

Dad likes to bring gifts on their small catch-ups that happen every once in a while.

Sheeee. Suffers a bit of resting bitch face.

she's kinda stunted emotionally because she was raised by her dad, who, isn't great with emotions himself being a man's man and all.

She's very much a tomboy gal. Doesn't exactly get dressed up. because she finds it tiresome and not "her".

Also if she did/does have friends the nickname Nemo 100% crops up because it's sadly alll too fitting but also kinda sweet.

She's actually really into cars and mechanics. Which is one of the few good reasons her dad and her are close.

She's hard to get to know, very quiet. And if you're someone who dominates the conversation she won't speak up much, but you'll be surprised to how much she's listened.

Just because she looks tired and done doesn't actually mean she feels that way.

Samson (Lemonade boi)

His name is Samson, but he prefers Sun/Sunny. (Other more affectionate nicknames include Lemondrop and Sunflower.)

He really likes going out to markets and stuff like that, little stalls or knick knack shops to find the odd kinda items.

He also really likes wandering big forests. (Hes got some o that fae energy) He collects various cool stones/rocks/plants from some of them. He also has some small vials from waterfalls and ponds he’s encountered)

He wants to practice magic to become a witch! He loves the candles and rocks and other cool things that come with the craft. (He inherited things from his father)

He really likes loose fitting shirts too, like flowy things, ones with sleeves that drape past your fingers, or has extra fabric on the bottom that dangle down past hips. (Sometimes they come from the ladies section just because they’re softer and have more variety. Others from op shops and other niche little stores.)

He bought a cologne from a witch that looks cursed but the only curse is that it makes the one who puts it on smell like citrus..so not much of curse. (The bottle looks fuckin neato tho)

He looves fizzy drinks. Doesn’t mind his alcohol either, however it takes a surprising amount to get him on his ass despite looking like a serious lightweight.

He’s pretty average in build, bit of muscle in his arms, some fat on his thighs. Slight pouch of a tum (cause no ones flat and thats unrealistic :<)

He’s about 5′4. So not tall, but not the shortest of the short.

He kinda likes to backpack about. Not staying in places long if they get boring. Which means he is kinda jack of all trades when it comes to work, offering to fix things for pay, lots of casual work doing various things.(One of his favorites was helping a little old lady run a paint shop.)

He occasionally snorts when he laughs and tries not to.

He has his ears pierced, and he has a little yellow gemed stud in his nose.

The ring around his neck he found in the middle of a patch of mushrooms.

He has a couple other tattoos. One of them is of bubbles up his wrist :3 He also has some stars on his ankle, and a sunflower on one of his fingers on his left hand.

He’s not super in to gardening but he does have his lemon tree. He also wants to grow some mandarins

His eyes look silver in a lot of lights, but occasionally there’s some strange hints of yellow, and other times blue.

He has freckles!!!! that look alot like bubbles ;)

He has a twin brother called Fraser.

Scrunches his nose

Hides his laughter behind his hand

[movienotesbyzawmer]

October 22: Friday the 13th - The Final Chapter

(previous notes: Friday the 13th Part 3)

I'm on movie number four in this eight movie project, and for the first time I'll be seeing one of these movies that I haven't ever seen before! When I do my watch-a-movie-and-take-notes projects, I generally do them for movies I've already seen before so that it's not too frustrating to simultaneously watch & type. But I'll make an exception for these Friday the 13th movies in light of the fact that they suck.

I remember this being out at my local theater in 1984, when I was 13, and even thinking it might be fun to see it, but I never got around to it.

It really must have been bittersweet for audiences at the time, knowing that this would be the final chapter. Each time they had a positive moment of enjoyment with this movie, they had to remember, "oh, I'm really going to miss this. It shall all be gone. Once the lights come back on, the days of new Friday the 13th movies will never return."

unless

Okay, watching this now for the first time ever.

Again beginning with a rehash. This time however, it's a montage of moments from the first two movies. Wait, now here's some of the third movie. But it's all framed by one of the monologues from the second movie. Much shorter and less of a cheap move than the last two movies did.

The title has a new title-plus-mask image… and then THE FINAL CHAPTER arrives to blow that image up with fire and splody-sounds!

The credits promise the likes of Corey Feldman and Crispin Glover, so that's exciting.

Okay, now it looks like we're at the ranch where the third one took place. They're hauling bodies out of the barn & other buildings. It looks like Jason's body is one of the bodies because hockey mask!

Actually, I think that first shot was a long-ish crane shot. Cinematically ambitious I guess.

We don't know yet what happened to the girl at the end of the last one. It's weird because this scene is at night, but the last movie ended with daytime paramedic activity at the ranch. I'm confused. Please help me. Please tell me that it will all be okay.

One of the covered up bodies has stirred! Jason is probably up to his not-be-dead-after-all tricks!

This scene is about a pair of frisky hospital workers in the "cold room" where there is at least one body, plus a television where the girl "just wants to watch the news". But 80s-style aerobics is what's really on the TV. And she kisses him after all and gets quite flirty, but then takes it all back because he is so insensitive or something. They show the aerobics a lot. It's all pelvic and prurient. Then Jason kills the guy with a bone saw and then goes and finds the girl and kills her with something else because diversity.

Then an abrupt cut to daytime joggers in the woods somewhere!

Now we are learning about the family of the joggers. They live in the country where there is a legend of a psycho, so I guess we're in the Crystal Lake area. The youngest child is Corey Feldman and his personality is "likes video games and wears a monster mask while playing them".

Now we are learning about the kids that rented a house across the street. Crispin Glover and another dude are in a car, talking about a girl and they clearly don't know how to have this kind of conversation, and the writers don't know how to pretend like they do so the other guy does a gag about how an invisible computer told him that CG is bad at sex. It is an unappealing intro to these characters. We even know there are a bunch of other people in the car, way too many honestly, but we don't get to know them. Just the two people who talk like broken robots about a woman.

Just to keep the mood where it ought to be, a hitchhiker they drove past gets impaled by Jason!

CF, a tweenager I should point out, is peeping-tom-ing at the canoodling couple in the rented house, and it is interesting to speculate as to whose idea it was for him to act the way he does when he watches them. He bounces excitedly and slams his head repeatedly into a pillow. Whose idea.

Now there's a skinny dipping scene. They definitely have arrived to the point in the series where they feel it's important to show pretty girls without any clothes.

For some reason, CF and the adult older sister drove to where the skinny dipping was happening, but they bolted when they realized that's what it was. There is ch ch ch ch ch ha ha ha ha ha on them as they have car trouble in the woods as they head home, plus also as two of the swimmers are hanging out. But they both turn out to be fakeouts! No one is dying at all! At least we'll always have the hitchhiker. They can't take that away from us.

The fakeout with the CF subplot is that it was just some handsome man that comes along to help. He says he is this deep in the woods because he is hunting for bear. CF totally calls him out! There's no way he's hunting for bear! No one is just like "it is bear hunting season and I am enjoying some leisurely bear hunting time". CF is no fool.

They decide to take Bear Hunter in as a guest for perhaps the afternoon. Because of the bubble of this movie, CF shows the Bear Hunter his monster toys and Bear Hunter shares in his enthusiasm.

0:37:13 - Now we are choking down this awkward scene where the young people are hanging out in their house trying to deliver dialogue that is not consistent with normal human psychology. The gist is that the men want to be sexual with the women but there are subtle social obstacles.

!!! Crispin Glover really is interesting! His screen presence absolutely towers above the rest of the cast, when he reacts unfavorably to being teased. But seriously all these interactions are so painful.

For our next murder project, we have an inflatable boat made of thin, vulnerable rubber for a person to get stabbed through. It requires assuming that Jason's magic powers allow him to just hide under water, waiting for a naked lady to lie down in the boat at night. This project was completed on time and under budget.

Seriously, the most terrifying scenes in this movie are the ones where the sexually frustrated young adults are hanging out and attempting to use words.

Another death just happened because the boyfriend of the recently-killed naked lady went to check on her, found her dead, then was Jason'd with some implements that I couldn't really understand. Something with a handle shoved into him somehow. It is filmed weirdly and then we just move on to Bear Hunter, camping nearby.

This is a disturbing turn… we're back on the uninteresting young adults, and one of them announces that he has found something very interesting! We see that it is old movie reels. They start watching them. It's old, old film of naked people. They laugh and laugh and laugh. Maybe this is art?

Pretty cool visual with this next death, we just see the shadow of Jason coming at her and killing her with a something. Looks cool as a shadow thing, plus it isn't "those stupid characters talking" which is a HUGE bonus.

We're back to CF's family; Mom saw something that startled her but we don't know what, and CF and Big Sister are… driving home in the car? Where were they, why did they drive somewhere, I forget. Maybe they had to run into town to pick up a packet of it-doesn't-matter-we-just-needed-Mom-to-be-alone.

Just like that, Older Sister went looking for Mom, but ends up taking shelter from the rain in Bear Hunter's tent. Bear Hunter, in a very predictable fakeout, slashes a hole in the tent because what is she doing in there anyway.

But we cut back to the young adults and CG gets a very ugly death! He's all "hey where's the corkscrew" and Jason makes his hand be corkscrewed and makes his face be stabbed!

Then he kills one of the other young adults just right afterward by being outside her second floor bedroom window and pulling her out the window SO HARD. Seriously it must be a hard job coming up with different ways to kill them, give them a break.

Back to Bear Hunter; he's fessing up to his true motive which is to hunt Jason. His story is hard to believe, and Big Sister is taking it in very diplomatically.

The one guy in the group of the young adults who is the biggest asshole is also the one most amused by the old films. We see them a lot, these old films they are watching. It is the silent era's version of soft core porn - women dancing naked. Anyway, the asshole's death happens when he gets the idea to be close to the projector screen, enabling Jason to stab him through it and making it look kind of cool and be a scene that ends with the projector-still-running cadence.

New death - guy is taking a post-coital shower and Jason comes in and shoves his arm through the sliding glass shower door thing and very effectively crushes the guy's head against the wall. Then the girlfriend comes in and discovers him; she runs down to the front door, but she can't open it, she just can't open it, it just won't open, and it ends with somehow Jason axe-killing her through the door from outside. They don't show it very well and no one probably ever clearly explained to anyone how it was supposed to work.

1:09:20 - This is followed immediately by a scene that is also poorly choreographed - Bear Hunter returns with Big Sister but it's a fakeout because for some reason they break the glass of the side door to get in, even though CF is right there. They are all frightened as if they know about deaths happening, even though they don't know about the deaths. It's just that the power has been spotty; that’s why things are urgent, as far as they know.

They decide to investigate the house where the young adults are staying. They are gingerly surveying the living room, and they walk right by where the projector screen murder happened, but they see no evidence of that crime.

1:11:55 - Bear Hunter tells the big sister "you stay right here with Corey". I'm pretty sure that just happened. I think he was referring to CF, whose character is not named Corey and who also is not with them.

In a shocking piece of non-linear storytelling, a dog jumps out a window in slow motion. Art. ART.

Jason kills Bear Hunter right in front of Big Sister, and even though his mission in life has been to hunt Jason, Bear Hunter doesn't even fight him off, he just begs Big Sister to run as Jason pounds on him. Big sister does run, but each of the house's exits has a dead person surprise that's too scary for her to go past so she's stuck inside with Jason!

But CF has heard her screaming and comes across the street to be with her. Oh but wait, I think they are actually now back at their house. I missed how that happened. That chase ends with a moment where she has reason to think she might have killed him by hitting him pretty hard with a cathode ray television set with an approximately 15" screen. But no, he changes back from almost-dead to regular-Jason and chases them around some more.

1:21:45 - They must have felt like their secret weapon for this movie was slo-mo thrown-through-a-window situations because Big Sister ends a portion of being chased by Jason by throwing herself through a window and landing painfully on the ground outside. Jason's all "you won this round Big Sister, but I'll be back. This is not The Final Chapter of this story!"

Everyone seems to have wound up back at the young adults' house, and CF has come up with an ingenious idea - he shaves his head to confuse Jason! Then he and Big Sister stab Jason a lot and it's all very gory and climactic.

The way the movie ends is that Jason's body twitches a little on the ground after they mostly kill him, and CF freaks out and stabs Jason many many, many more times! Cut to later on when Big Sister is in a hospital bed being told it will all be okay by some Caucasian men in white coats. They suggest that CF was pretty crazy for a minute there but that will pass. CF comes to give her a hug… but he looks scary! You guys, look, he looks scary! The big finish is that CF has a sinister look on his face. Cut to credits.

We never saw what happened to the Mom. Or the main girl from Part 3. Also it seems like there were some other young adults that just stopped being in the movie. How dare they.

Okay so I am halfway through this ridiculous project. I have watched four of the eight Friday the 13th movies. I watched them all by myself at my home during the COVID-19 pandemic. These challenging times I tell you.

(next: Friday the 13th - A New Beginning)

[brunhiddensmusings]

random movies/shows i just remembered were a thing

there is no point in any of this other then me being impressed that i remember all of this shit and reflecting on ‘i couldnt make this up if i tried’ a live action tv series of alice in wonderland, it was violently 80s an ‘alf’ cartoon series, that was MORE violently 80s an alice in wonderland cartoon series from the makers of the alf cartoon series which was only moderately 80s neverending story animated series that is somehow underwhelming enough it erases memory of itself a show where james earl jones sits in some kind of negative plane room that has a floor, doors, windows, a chair, and one lamp yet somehow no walls, the windows just kind of hover there. he told stories. how the hell did a show where james earl jones just tells soothing stories fly under everyone's radar? a live action reading comprehension series that featured a kid with magic gloves that rode a stationary bycicle to warp through dimensions that im sure no other human being ever saw so im partially thinking it might have been a hallucination except hallucinations typically have higher production values an animated glowworm movie that was trying to do with the glowworm dolls what MLP the show did for MLP the toys. it contained at least one song i can still remember the tune of 25 years later. there was a moleperson that gave off strong lesbian vibes who was rebelling against her biker vibe moleperson family an animated movie about ‘the lollipop dragon’ that seemed like there was other content on the intellectual property but ive never seen any, taking the form of a car race through whats essentially candyland to prevent liver and onion flavored lollipops being the new official christmas candy to be distributed by santa clause live action series that was only ever on at like 4AM where someone tells fairy tales that are slightly more disturbing then they should be while illustrating them in chalk which is one hell of a trick the animated series ‘mummies alive’ that was trying to basically copy/paste everything they could from the ‘gargoyles’ show but forgot to make it good not to be confused with the ‘tutenstein’ show, which somehow made less sense ‘dink the dinosaur’ a tv series hoping nobody noticed it wasn't actually land before time the animated series a live action series where a modern family was trapped somewhere that was a dinosaur infested jungle so they had to live in a tree house that was only just barely taller then the t-rex that was continually stalking them. the moon had claw marks on it i think? it was basically swiss family robinson but early 90s animated movie ‘the elm chanted forest’ that im more just baffled my parents were able to acquire something that obscure in their pirated vhs collection, i cant think of a possible reason anyone in my family would ever have been in the same room as a copy of this. like damned i havent even seen any of the youtubers that rate obscure bizzare movies even mention this fever dream. the highlight was probably when the talking mushrooms started breakdancing in a impressively racist manner like damned you raised the bar on racist cartoons somehow for about two minutes in an otherwise completely inoffensive movie from i think croatia. seriously its the best part, even better then when the cactus king summons his sapient weapon minions and engages his ferris wheel of doom to kill all the beavers

the animated series ‘superdave’ about a daredevil who gets repeatedly maimed, and repeatedly framed it as though he was a real person in the way jackie chan adventures does the animated series ‘wish kid’ where macully culkin aged 9 is granted basically fairy odd parents style wish abilities from a baseball glove. gilbert godfried its there, constantly, like hes almost there as much as the kid is holy crap i forgot the tazmanian devil got his own show for like five months yall remember when the ps1 first launched? when the game cases were strangely huge for no particular reason because they hadnt adopted the jewel cases yet and there were only like seven games available for the system and none of them even knew how to incorporate memory cards? ‘blazing dragons’ was a point and click adventure game that happened to be one of those seven games, eric idle was one of the people who made the game yet ive never met anyone who remembers playing the game or even hearing anything about it. yeah, this game had an animated series.... it was surprisingly witty in a were not even trying to make sense way that was purposefully avoiding explaining its world live action series ‘zoobalie zoo’ where people in the worst fursuits known to man just kind of exist in an almost entirely empty set where a handfull of circus cage wagons that i assume were their homes were the only structures outside of like two cardboard bushes why the hell was ‘mighty max’ not a cultural icon the way invader zim was, that show rocked so hard ‘the robonic stooges’ where the 3 stooges are robots jhon candy had an animated series where he played himself as a camp counselor. it.... kinda worked almost, blending the generic 80s camp movie ‘bad land developer’ formula with self aware complaints. it only stank a little the animated ‘happy days’ spinoff where they have a time traveling spaceship

not to be confused with the one where the partridge family lives in the year 3000, or when casper the ghost lives in space.... im beginning to see a trend here ‘starship troopers’ the CG series where surprisingly nobody ever died an animated series about a green rabbit on a spaceship that i only recently learned also was not a fever dream from when i was 8. all images i see of it only convince me more that im still hallucinating its existance i cant rmember the name of it but a live action series about aliens living on earth, all the adults have actual costumes to disguise themselves as humans but the baby, who is apperantly the ruler of the universe, is a disturbing pink puppet. also they have magic powers instead of technology and the theme song was ‘wishing on a star’. memories of this show still occasionally haunt me but it was still better then charles in charge just on novelty value there was a ‘jhonny quest’ reboot that aged him up and incorporated CG for a kind of cyberspace setting for the sole purpose they had a villian that was a quadrapallegic but could do things in the cyberspace setting, yet really nobody should have cared because the cyberspace setting wasnt connected to any real world imput devices so he was just the main boss of his own videogame why are you picking on this man. they were foggy on if haji actually had magic powers or just really hardcore yoga skills, and one fanatical zealot villian who basically escaped from the place they keep the well written batman antagonists you remember the ‘the way things work’ book? it had illustrations on every concept of physics and mechanical processes that used mammoths to explain everything from the screw to the lever to sewing machines to integrated circuits. yeah, it had an animated tv series .....somehow not to be confused with ‘cro’, an animated series about a mammoth that was frozen, thawed in the late 80s, was able to talk, and was a framing device for his stories of a weirdly sexily drawn caveman teen that invented all technology

it was basically ‘the croods’ but better and 30 years earlier a live action series based on ‘harry and the hendersons’.... im surprised they could create enough material for one full episode like seriously where do you go from there? its surprisingly hard to think of a story for ‘were a modern 80s family who has bigfoot as a roomate’ an animated series where a basketball player, baseball player, and hockey player are secretly superheroes. there was also a hardcore badass old lady who did most of the work. wayne gretszky was the one nobody respected the pocket dragons had a show. yes, a show based on collectable porcelain figurines that were marketed for their cute value on home shopping network CG series ‘vanpires’, yes it was about sapient cars that were vampires and actual live children who turned into cars that were vampires. that is all oh yeah, there was a back to the future animated series, i thought i repressed that better speaking of repressed memories, i cannot escape the knowledge that ‘super duper sumos’ and ‘mega babies’ existed, booze cannot erase this knowledge

[thecomicsnexus]

TEENAGE MUTANT NINJA TURTLES: URBAN LEGENDS #1-5 ADAPTED FROM TMNT #1-5 (1996). MAY - SEPTEMBER 2018 BY GARY CARLSON, FRANK FOSCO, ERIK LARSEN, CHANCE WOLF, ANDREW PEPOY AND ADAM GUZOWSKI

SYNOPSIS (FROM TURTLEPEDIA AND TMNT ENTITY)

The TMNT are attacked in their lair by a group of cyborgs lead by a female ninja named Pimiko. Donatello was severely wounded in the initial attack, and Pimiko ends up capturing Splinter while he was trying to help his fallen son. The villains escape with Donatello and Splinter as captives. Raph, Leo and Mike chase their foes, but the villains escape in a helicopter. While the vehicle flies off, Donatello dreams of recent events and eventually awakes with a start - attacking the nearest cyborg! Both assailants crash out of the helicopter and begin freefalling to the ground far, far below. Back at the Turtles' lair, the three remaining brothers investigate a fallen cyborg (that had its head removed in the battle). As Raph pokes the body with his sai, the head awakens and calls out a warning. Raphael ignores the warning and prods the body again, and this time it opens fire and the blast hits the curious Turtle in the face. Mike smashes the head and Leo cuts the body into pieces. Raphael's face is severely injured and Mike leads him off to get the first aid kit. Master Splinter appears in astral form and informs Leonardo of the dire circumstances facing both Donatello and himself.

In the skies above Manhattan, Donatello and his cyborg “buddy” are still falling to their deaths. The cyborg, blaming Don for their predicament, attempts to blast the Turtle in the face. Instead, he accidentally blows his own brains out. With nowhere soft to land in sight, and his consciousness fading, Don turns his shell to the ground and prepares for impact.

In upstate New York, Pimiko and her cyborg lackey arrive at Dragonlord Komodo’s headquarters with Splinter’s heavily drugged body in tow. They lock Splinter up in a jail cell, all the while a vicious half-man/half-shark monster named Mako makes carnivorous comments toward them. The cyborg gets too close and Mako bites his arm off. Pimiko insults the cyborg's carelessness and, enraged, he decides to let her know how sick he is of taking her orders. Pimiko stabs him in the chest and tells Mako that beneath the crunchy robot exterior is plenty of fresh meat. Mako proceeds to pull the damaged cyborg into his cell and devour him.

Down in the sewers, Leo leads Mike and a bandaged-up Raph away from the sewer lair, fearing their location has been compromised by Pimiko and the Dragonlord. Leo takes them to a forgotten mausoleum in Westwood Cemetery, saying it would make for a good temporary lair. After some clowning around between Raph and Mike, Leo informs them that the first order of business is to find out who the "Dragonlord" is and get Splinter and Don back. Leo gives Raph one of Casey’s old hockey masks to hide his scarred face and asks him to meet up with his contacts in the Foot Clan to see if they know anything about Pimiko (other than the fact that she took her name from a sorceress in Feudal Japan who ruled with the aid of a thousand women and one man).

As Raph leaves, he fails to notice a kunoichi (female ninja) named Angel, watching him from behind a tree. Angel reports her findings to Pimiko, who is meeting with Dragonlord Komodo in one of his laboratories. The large and imposing Dragonlord orders the cyborg project to be suspended because, according to Pimiko, the cyborgs were all dunces. His scientists are currently operating on a hairy man with silly hair named “Weasel” who apparently boasts four claws on his hands and an advanced healing factor. They discover that Weasel, despite his name, is not an anthropomorph, but just some kind of mutant. Komodo deems him worthless and orders his body disposed of. Suddenly, Weasel wakes up, snikts his claws and swears vengeance, calling everyone “bubba” in the process. Pimiko cuts his head off.

Back at the Mausoleum, Leo is attempting to contact Splinter via the astral plane, much to the amusement of Raph and Mike. Raph tells Leo that he’s not nearly skilled enough to manage such a feat, but Leo refuses to quit. Now with some peace and quiet, Leo continues on and is suddenly contacted by the spirit of Don. Don tells Leo of his fall from the chopper and shows him his dying body, splattered in an alley somewhere. Don is paralyzed from the neck down, losing blood and very close to death.

At the other end of the mausoleum, Mike finally hits pay dirt on the internet, learning about a large piece of property in upstate New York owned by a Komodo Inc. Raph says that his contacts in the Foot said Pimiko works for Komodo Inc., making that the best place to go look. The Turtles attempt to snap Leo out of his trance, only to suddenly find the mausoleum filled with kunoichi. Pimiko is at the front of the invading army, informing the Turtles that she has had them under constant surveillance and orders her kunoichi to attack. Despite all the commotion, Leo is still stuck in his trance.

Raph and Mike face off with Pimiko and her ninja while Leo continues to speak with Donatello via astral protection. Don is now back in his paralyzed body and suffering tremendous pain. Leonardo bids farewell to his brother and heads back to his body so he can help Don on the physical plane. On the way, Leo meets Master Splinter on the astral plane, who informs his student that he remains a prisoner and cannot help, other than to escort Leo safely back to his body. In Lord Komodo's lab, the scientists inform the Dragonlord that Splinter contains mostly animal DNA, which pleases the overlord.

Don encounters a hungry rat as he lies prone in the alley, while Master Splinter is taken to meet Lord Komodo. The Dragonlord informs Splinter that he is heir to the Dragon Bushido Spirit, his ancestors once ruled Japan and he intends to do so again. Splinter states that he is honored to meet the heir to the Dragon Bushido and introduces himself as a humble ninja. Komodo replies that this claim must be proven, and orders two samurai to attack. Master Splinter easily defeats them. The Dragonlord is upset that his elite guard fell so easily, but he bows to Master Splinter and apologizes for treating him so poorly. Splinter bows in return and the two share tea. Lord Komodo asks Splinter how he came to be in this form, and the Sensei retells his origin.

Mike and Raph continue to fight Pimiko and her minions. Unfortunately the villains get the upper hand by holding Leo hostage. Pimiko tells Raph that she'll be taking Leonardo with her, but he awakens at that moment and escapes her grasp. The female ninja breaks the room's light bulb and she and her remaining ninjas flee. The guys give chase but see them flying off in a helicopter. As Leo and Mike watch dejectedly, Raph arrives in a Triceraton air car that Don had found in the sewers and finished. The Turtles take off in the air car to help Don.

Back at Lord Komodo's base, the Dragonlord is showing Splinter a chamber that is filled with anthropomorphic creatures that lie dead in tubes. Komodo explains that one of them must hold the key to splicing human and animal DNA - and discovering this secret will allow Komodo to unleash the power of the ancient dragons that "slumbers inside" of him. Splinter questions if the deaths of so many was necessary, but Komodo brushes off the question and states that killing them was "an act of mercy" as they were all savage brutes. As the two leave the room and walk down a hallway, Splinter is alarmed by the stench of carnage. Lord Komodo explains that it is probably the road kill that they use to feed Mako, as he insists on eating meat. Just then, a huge shark-mutant attacks, punching the Dragonlord in the face and knocking him unconscious... leaving Splinter alone to face the monster.

Leo, Raph and Mike arrive at the alley where Don's body is - but they find nothing but his skeletal remains!

Raph, Leo and Mike investigate the skeletal remains in Don's shell, and discover that the bones aren't their brother's! Leo deduces that the bones must be the human remains of the cyborg that Donatello had been fighting. Raphael gets angry and swears vengeance against the Dragonlord and Pimiko - Leo and Mike join the vow. The guys then fly to Komodo Industries in their modified Triceraton air car. Leo tells Raph to park the car so they can attack under the cover of darkness, but Raph wants to begin the assault now. The two argue until Mike knocks their heads together and tells them they aren't doing anything until they bury what's left of their brother.

Inside Komodo Industries, Master Splinter does battle with the shark mutant, Mako. Splinter manages to break the behemoth's nose and avoid its attacks until several giant komodo dragons arrive and attack Mako (who has no problem killing them). During the bloody fight, Splinter attends to the Dragonlord, who has recovered from Mako's earlier attack. Lord Komodo draws his blade to assist his allies, but before he gets far, he collapses and begins convulsing. Mako arrives and Master Splinter smashes him in the nose again - the sharkman cries out in pain, but then stops his assault as he ponders what's happening to the Dragonlord. Mako and Splinter watch as Lord Komodo transforms into a giant komodo dragon. The sight of this disturbs Mako and he runs off, while Master Splinter walks with the Dragonlord back to the room where the komodo dragons were killed. Pimiko and a Komodo Industries executive are there, assessing the damage. Splinter asks the man if the transformation occurs regularly, but Pimiko holds her blade to his throat and tells him he must die for discovering Lord Komodo's secret.

Outside in some nearby woods, the Turtles have built a cairn for Donatello's remains, thinking that their brother is dead. Leo and Raph head off to assault Komodo Industries while Mike lags behind and cries. Later, the Turtles are walking through a cornfield when Mako crashes past them, being chased by more giant komodo dragons. Mako discovers the Triceraton air car and leaps into it, making his escape (much to Leo's dismay). Fortunately, Raph has a remote control that he uses to turn the car upside-down and spill the sharkman out - and then the ninja steers the vehicle back to where the Turtles are standing.

Meanwhile, Donatello is recovering from his ordeal. As it turns out, the machine parts of the cyborg he had battled have a life of their own, and after the crash they left their human host and assimilated Donny, thus making him a Teenage Mutant Ninja Cyborg Turtle. Donatello finds himself walking in the cornfield, and targeting Mako - who he blasts with his new robotic armory.

Outside Lord Komodo’s castle, Leo, Raph and Mike are making short work of the guards (though Leo and Raph naturally argue over subduing vs. killing). Snooping around, they eventually spot Master Splinter…having tea with Dragonlord Komodo.

Inside, Komodo regrets that Splinter must be executed as he knows too much. Komodo plans on regaining his ancestral position as Emperor of Japan and his armies all over the globe stand ready for the take-over…which cannot take place until he cures his diseased Bushido spirit. Splinter then collapses thanks to some drugged tea and Komodo has him hauled off to the lab for further processing.

In the cornfield not far away, Don is trying to cope with his new cyborg body. Mako recovers from the laser blast he took and hightails it out of there, while Donny is besieged by the angry consciousness of the cyborg armor’s previous user. Don recalls that after he and the cyborg fell from the helicopter and splattered on the street, the cyborg armor crawled over to Don’s dying body and merged with it. Realizing that the consciousness talking to him is nothing more than an old memory file, Don deletes it and takes full control of the armor. He then trudges slowly toward Komodo’s castle for some revenge.

In the lab, Dr. Wu prepares a syringe of mutagen to inject into Splinter. Pimiko stops him, much to Lord Komodo’s annoyance, as she has some questions. Pimiko reveals that she is the daughter of none other than Oroku Saki: The Shredder. She claims that her mother fled from Saki before she was born and that Komodo gave them refuge. Pimiko wishes to know if it is true that the Hamato Yoshi “clan” are responsible for her father’s death. Splinter takes responsibility and Pimiko demands the right to face him in combat; a request Lord Komodo refuses.

As Dr. Wu prepares to inject Splinter with the mutagen, Leo, Raph and Mike burst in through the skylight and attack. Dr. Wu begins injecting Splinter, but Pimiko stabs him in the torso and tosses him away before he can finish (inadvertently causing him to inject the remainder of the mutagen into one of the Dragonlord’s pet Komodo dragons). As the Kunoichi, who are loyal only to the Dragonlord, attack, Pimiko offers to help the Turtles and Splinter escape, citing that she will no longer serve Komodo. Raph helps the woozy Splinter down into a secret tunnel and rejoins the fracas. Suddenly, the Komodo dragon mutates and attacks.

Things are looking bad until, out of the blue, Donnie arrives and blasts the mutated Komodo dragon away. The Turtles are thrilled to see that their brother is alive, but the reunion will have to wait; the Dragonlord has initiated the castle’s self-destruct. The Turtles flee into the tunnel, but Pimiko stays behind, saying that she must try to help the injured Kunoichi that the Dragonlord left behind.

The tunnel leads into a cave where the Turtles are besieged by a swarm of bats… and one really, really big bat. They realize that the bat is Splinter, transformed by the mutagen into a mindless beast, and give chase. He escapes into the night and the Turtles fly off in the Triceraton aircar just as the castle explodes. They decide to head back to the lair and hope Splinter returns there once he’s come to his senses. Donnie, though, is a little irked that his brothers have yet to ask what’s happened to him.

REVIEW

Boy, does this look weird or what?

Many artists struggle making the turtles look different. The cartoons used different bandanas and belts, the 2012 version made them different sizes and with unique details. Well Image decided to go with a very dramatic transformation. And they wasted no time.

But was it necessary? Cyborg Donatello? Raphael of the Opera? It’s just too extreme to me. Like most of Image at the Image (although I would imagine that by 1996 the quality may have had improved).

I could have reviewed the original issues in Black and White, but I found them very hard to follow. My eyes get lost between all the lines in ways that do not happen with the Mirage issues. Fortunately, IDW decided to recolor the whole thing, adding three more issues (still to come out in 2020) to close all the unfinished plots. The recoloring is very good, and smart at the same time. I mention it is smart because, when you look at the originals, the contrast is quite high, making it very similar to Frank Miller’s style around the time (Sin City).

In colors, this was done by using very colorful (and contrasting) colors on the backgrounds. Or the contrary, making the backgrounds calmer than the foreground.

This volume is technically part of the Image “universe”, as Mako is part of Savage Dragon. But the Image universe is very ad-hoc, so anything can be “part” of it at anytime.

In these issues I found the turtles to be too happy when they had no reasons to even smile. Their dialogues were completely disconnected to what they were experiencing. These are all tragedies that happened one after the other.

I think this may have been the writer trying to find the tone of the book. It is clear that they are trying to distance themselves from the most comic-relief versions of the turtles. I am also pretty sure that the cartoon was over or ending by the time of publication (but the Saban series was around the corner).

I hope this book to find a balance and a believable tone.

I give these issues a score of 6.

[andromeda1023]

Building the Large Synoptic Survey Telescope also means solving extraordinary technological challenges. (Illustration by Sandbox Studio, Chicago with Ariel Davis A game of ‘Operation’ )

In a brightly lit clean room at the US Department of Energy’s SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory, engineers are building a car-sized digital camera for the Large Synoptic Survey Telescope.

When it’s ready, LSST will image almost all of the sky visible from its vantage point on a Chilean mountain, Cerro Pachón, every few nights for a decade to make an astronomical movie of unprecedented proportions.

The camera is a combination of many extremes. Its largest lens is one of the biggest ever created for astronomy and astrophysics. The ceramic grid that will hold its imaging sensors is so flat that no feature larger than a human red blood cell sticks up from its surface. The electronics that control the sensors are customized to fit in a very tight space and use as little power as possible.

All of these specifications are vital for letting LSST achieve its scientific goals. And not many of them are easy to achieve. The LSST camera will do what no camera has been capable of doing before, and building it requires solving technical problems that have never been solved before.

“When you consider a project this complex, you can’t just dive in and say ‘Here, I’m going to design and build this in one shot,’ right?” says Tim Bond, head of the LSST Camera Integration and Test team at SLAC. “You have to divide and conquer. So you break it up into smaller pieces that individual groups can work on.”

One of those pieces is figuring out how to get the camera’s sensors into place.

The 3.2-billion-pixel LSST camera will be the largest digital camera ever constructed. Much like handheld digital cameras, the LSST camera will be made up of imaging sensors called charge-coupled devices—189 of them. These sensors and their bundles of electronics are arranged into 21 nine-sensor pallets called “rafts.” Each one weighs more than 20 pounds and stands almost 2 feet tall.

Each sensor is fragile enough to chip if it even touches one of the other rafts. And, to minimize gaps in the sensors’ images, all of the rafts must be installed two hundredths of an inch apart inside the camera’s ceramic grid.  

The LSST engineers couldn’t possibly install the delicate rafts by hand without destroying them, so they took on the challenge of creating a device that could do this very specific task in their place.

They concocted one concept after another. Travis Lange, a SLAC mechanical engineer, created computer models of each to find a design that could both do the job and be built with the level of machining precision available.

“One of the bigger challenges for this is just the tolerance of all the individual pieces and how it corresponds to how much motion I am allowed to use,” Lange says. If a part is the wrong size by even just the width of a human hair, it’s a problem. "If you have many of those parts that are off by that much, those errors all stack up.”

One of the designs that the team drew up resembled a claw-machine game. The device would sit on a structure above the cryostat, the apparatus that keeps the camera cold. With a long arm, it would reach through to a raft waiting for installation below. Over the course of several hours, it would pull the raft up through a very precisely sized slot and into place in the grid.

Four specialized cameras pointing at the edges of the imaging sensors would help steer the raft into place without hitting neighboring sensors, and unique imaging software would measure the gaps between rafts in real time. “It’s a crazy game of ‘Operation,’” Lange says.

The team went with the claw-machine plan. In May 2018, they put it to the test with its first practice raft and a mock-up of the camera. After most of a day had passed, the raft was successfully in place.

The installation robot has since gone through several other successful test runs. Now that they’ve figured out the kinks in the process, installing each raft takes about two hours. Engineers plan to start the real installation process this summer.

The electronics and sensors crammed together inside the camera heat up as electricity runs through them. But heat is the enemy of astronomical observation. A warm sensor will sabotage its own observations by behaving as if it senses light where there is none. And as anyone who has ever heard their laptop fan working overtime before the computer crashed may know, heat can also cause electronics to stop working.

To keep the camera cold enough, the engineers needed to create a customized refrigeration system. They eventually made a system of eight refrigeration circuits—two for the electronics and six for the sensors.

Each of these systems works similarly to a kitchen refrigerator, in which a fluid refrigerant carries heat away from the object or area it’s supposed to cool. Networks of tubes carry the refrigerant into and out of the camera.

At first, the team used only metal tubes for this job. Metal is good at keeping moisture out, which is important because any water that gets into the tubes from the surrounding air would freeze and clog the system. At parts of the system where the camera would need to move around with the telescope as it points to different parts of the sky, the tubes were corrugated to make them into flexible metal hoses.  

But there was a problem. The refrigeration system’s compressor, a device that forces the refrigerant to dump its absorbed heat outside the camera, uses lubricating oil to work smoothly. As the refrigeration system ran, some of the oil would leave the compressor and travel through the tubes.

This wouldn’t have been a problem if the oil had traveled at a consistent pace all the way through the circuit, back to the compressor. But that wasn’t happening; the oil was getting slowed down and sometimes trapped by the grooves in the corrugated metal hoses. The compressor was getting oil back in trickles or spurts rather than in a steady stream. This made the refrigeration system unpredictable and harder to maintain.

So the team switched to a different kind of hose for the refrigeration system’s “joints,” says Diane Hascall, a SLAC mechanical engineer on the LSST camera team. “You can almost think of it like a garden hose. But it’s a very special garden hose that’s made to work with refrigerants.”

The new hoses, called smooth-bore hoses, are made of layers of rubber, braid and other flexible materials, and they are smooth on the inside. The smooth hose lets oil return to the compressor more effectively, Hascall says.

But there was a trade-off. Unlike the metal hoses, the smooth-bore hoses do let some moisture in.

To deal with that, the team installed filter dryers that absorb moisture from the system. They are still figuring out how often the dryers need to be replaced to keep the camera in good shape.

Building each component of a piece of technology as sophisticated as LSST is a challenge in itself, but the challenges don’t end there. Engineers must also design specialized equipment, software and procedures to test different pieces; put the pieces together; and determine what maintenance the technology will need to run smoothly.  

“There’s a huge number of subsystems,” Bond says. “All of those subsystems have to present their products. And all those products have to be assembled and tested and work in the final finished full product.”

Bond says working on the project has been a great boon to the engineering team. He says figuring out all of the unexpected challenges that have come with making such an advanced piece of technology has been a great experience, and he looks forward to seeing what future projects the team will tackle together.

“It’s like picking a bunch of players to set up a hockey team or something,” Bond says. “We’ve actually put together a very good team, and we’re just getting some of our younger people up to speed and trained for the next generation of experiments and projects that will come along.”

https://www.symmetrymagazine.org/article/engineering-the-worlds-largest-digital-camera

[itsjesperfahey]

modern soc au

inej: 

loves to dance !!! esp ballet but she can dance to whatever tbfh, she’s that good 

likes to wear caps, esp backwards. really loves bomber jackets too. 

has a couple, small tattoos dedicated to her saints 

is that one kid who loves to do parkour (both ironically and unironically) for instance is really good at it but sometimes just yells PARKOUR and steps over a rock

usually found eating lunch with her pals on the roof of the school 

is amazing at hide and seek like holy fuck ????? hid for 2 hours once and wasn’t found, came back the next day and was like “y'all losers SUCK" 

loves to study other people’s cultures, as well as history and is great as p.e (never has gotten a bad grade in the flexibility tests) 

likes to read poem books 

has a black cat as a pet named "saint" 

pronounced meme as "mehmeh” the first time she read it 

only has snapchat and instagram. is that kid who ALWAYS posts the sunset every day, esp from weird/high places and the comments are always “HOW THE FUCK DID YOU GET UP THERE" 

cried the most during fox and the hound 

always braiding nina’s hair. Knows how to do all the super advanced onces as well

"I don’t know, CAN YOU?" 

 the best one at pushing people on the swings 

AMAZING AT JUST DANCE WITH JESPER 

"sorry I ran out of fucks to give try again later maybe?" 

gives the nicest presents. always knows what a person wants for christmas/their birthday 

the one who’s really into photography and is always taking aesthetic™ pics of Nina for her social media accounts 

Prefers tea over coffee

wylan:

bullied for not being able to read (at least up until high school), so is super shy 

loves drawing. the artistic™ one who takes anatomy to be able to draw people better 

MASTER FLUTE MUSICIAN. On the school band. Jams hard af when he plays it 

is in gem math and AP chem with kuwei. 

loves sweet. addicted to blue jolly ranchers. his tongue is always blue 

constantly pushing up his thick rimmed glasses (even if they ain’t on, which causes him to poke his eye)

looooves all the superhero shows on the CW 

V neck sweaters. always

always has his trusty satchel

only has tumblr. has like 10k followers because of his artwork. 

”‘illuminati’ ? is that a band?“ 

cat person even though he’s allergic to cat fur. absolutely adores inej’s cat. settles for owning a horned lizard named "shrek" 

secretly a huge fan of memes 

really gay for tom holland and ed sheeran (calls him "ginger Jesus”) 

gamer with jesper. they always play overwatch together, wylans better tho. a genji and Ana main 

cried the most during big hero six 

wylan, with blank eyes: “I like my coffee how I like my men” // jesper: *spits out his drink* 

matthias: 

sports fan obv. On the schools hockey team bc his fav is hockey. is extremely competitive when he plays it. Is constantly checking but never gets penalties (aka slamming the other players against the walls)

played basketball against jesper and surprisingly lost. jesper won’t let it go 

dog person. owns a pet pomsky (Pomeranian-husky) with nina who’s name is “bub" 

“long hair don’t care”draws inspiration from Harry styles 

really philosophical. takes all the philosophy/ethics classes available 

kind of sounds like Thor (thick and deep accent) 

a good™

"you’re all horrible trash”

“do we really have to be doing this now? I have to finish my homework" 

loves baking. bakes everything for the love of his life 

grey sweatshirts and adidas shoes 

wears contacts Because he hates how glasses look on him. only wears them when he’s home 

oblivious to all the women in love with him

"CAN YOU EVEN LIFT BRO? BECAUSE I SURE AS FRICK CAN” (doesn’t curse) 

real 👍🏻🤘🏻👌🏻life🤰🏻👼🏻🌱student📚✂️✏️athelete🏃🏼🥇🏆🥅🏒

has Facebook and Twitter only

cried the most during bambi and dumbo 

little spoon™ 

has a couple tattoos with very deep meanings

jesper: 

dancer with inej. dances like those ppl who look like robots ??? the ones who look like they freeze parts of their body while the others move. AMAZING at it 

loves jazz but also dubstep/edm and rap/r&b. Beyoncé is MOM/QUEEN. 

sometimes djs parties 

again, huge gamer with wylan. he’s a lucio and junkrat main for overwatch. loves like every video game ever 

loves all the marvel movies, in love with black panther (was team cap) 

dresses like a hipster but also sometimes a fuck boy (tank tops and shorts with a backwards cap style) 

favorite subject is business and debate. great negotiator 

cried the most during the lion king 

A+ cosplayer (especially his lucio cosplay) 

big supporter of human rights (LGBTA+, feminist, black lives matter, poc representation). Will LITERALLY get into fights over anyone who thinks otherwise. Fist fights, always supported by Kaz and Matthias. Got suspended for 3 days for breaking a kids nose who thought LGBTA+ people should **** ** ****) 

that one kid who has 50 fidget spinners and can do cool tricks with them. also manages to sell all of them 

skateboard pro™ 

always sends the blinking face meme, even if it’s out of context 

all the social medias. 

one tattoo only of a gun with a 'bang’ flag coming out of it 

nina: 

 PROFESSIONAL👏🏻 MAKE 👏🏻 UP 👏🏻 ARTISTS 👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻 HAS HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS OF FOLLOWERS ON HER INSTAGRAM AND THE SAME FOR HER YOUTUBE CHANNEL 

Speaking of YouTube, she always does cute videos. Baking/cooking tutorial videos featuring Matthias, 'i do my boyfriends makeup’, 'my boyfriend does my makeup’, 'my boyfriend buys my makeup’, does make up tutorials obviously, challenges with her best friend inej like the 'whisper challenge’. everyone loves her and says her and Matthias are their otp 

loves fashion design, takes that class. 

loves horror movies/creepy things but also Disney 

great at roller skating 

always wins the best dressed awards ad school 

also huge fan of ed sheeran. loves little mix more than 5h. 

cried the most during 'up' 

Can speak like 4 languages (English, french, Latin and spanish) 

loves traveling and learning about new cultures too 

dancer!inej’s biggest fan and hockey!matthias’ biggest fan 

always breaks snapchat streaks 

likes to (friendly) debate with jesper, especially over stupid things 

amazing with kids. babysits all the time. calls “bub” (the dog) her and matthias’ baby 

big spoon™ 

notes are so fucking pretty. buys the most expensive stationary and notebooks 

also huge supporter of human rights. runs the feminist club. (Jesper is the Vice President) stresses loving yourself and your body, and makes sure to design comfortable yet GORGEOUS clothes for “"plus sized people”“ 

wins 'dynamic duo’ award with inej 

always eating lollipops 

has a few very small tatos of cute things like roses and crowns. has one quote written in cursive on her rib

kaz: 

prefers black coffee as well 

loves crime shows, whether they’re real or fake. for instance loves both 'Dateline’ and 'Criminal Minds’ also loves 'House’

 favorite class is psychology, learning how a person thinks and acts and feels

has the dregs tattoo on his arm * edge lord 9000™ * such a drama queen and diva like damn 

*deep sigh* "I think I’d rather go take a nap” *gets up and leaves* 

also loves computer science. knows how to hack shit like a pro 

always rough housing with jesper. broke a table once 

does walk with a cane. likes to slap matthias’ ass with it 

“bow down you fucking peasants" 

only types in lower case with 0 emojis and no punctuation marks. CONSTANTLY leaves people on read 

only has Twitter and snapchat. His posts on snapchat never have captions, yet somehow has a 200 day streak with Jesper and a 250 day streak with inej 

loves watching horror movies with nina 

 *in a fight* "oh I’ll sHOW YOU SOME DIRTY HANDS” *swings* 

gets second place for best dressed award 

always sending memes with no context in their group chat, as well as vines 

indie and alternative rock fan 

“does it look like I care because I’m sorry if it does I didn’t mean to give you that impression" 

head over heels for inej Ghafa like wow 

likes to read a lot of mystery books and non fiction books 

cried the most during finding dory 

can solve a Rubik’s cube under a minute and won’t let you forget it 

The one asshole who picks either Kirby or metaknight in super smash brothers brawl

 hates seeing the notification bubble so he always has all chats muted and notifications turned off for apps 

kiss ass to all the teachers to get them A’s

Kuwei: 

SCIENCE NERD. ALWAYS singing the bill nye theme song. Loves ASAPScience on YouTube. Master at chemistry and biology 

"hey did u know bill nye is, like, my dad" 

nina treats him like a baby 

loves everything to do with Star Wars while wylan loves star trek more. Fighting ensues. 

has a pet Siamese cat name sparky 

Used to have a huge crush on jesper and everyone knew it except jesper. 

knows the intro to the bee movie ("according to all known laws of aviation-”)

 jesper in the group chat: “gonna go shower be right back” // kuwei: “without me ;)?” // wylan: “KUWEI SWEAR TO FUCK” // kaz: “watch your fucking language wylan" 

obsessed with Pokémon go even if it died out (chose team instinct) 

"fight me on this" 

has Twitter, snapchat and instagram 

Always drinking ginger ale 

master at bop it 

the one kid who always forgets to pay you back for stuff 

is also into the CW super hero shows, so him and wylan are constantly talking about it 

loves cartoons and anime 

speaks fluent fuckboy 

God awful at comebacks 

"let’s take a selfie guys !!!” // “kuwei no-” // *snapshot sound* 

talks !!! Like !! This !!!! for,,, some reason ???????? 

huge nerd for other things too like lord of the rings and Harry Potter and game of thrones 

cried the most during inside out

 "do you think planes are scared of heights?“ // "for fucks same kuwei it’s 4am”

[dsudis]

What I’m Reading Wednesday, 10/4/2017

Two weeks in a row! Look at me go! I managed to function like a human being for like the entire day today, it was sort of amazing. So now I will continue my impressive accomplishments by making a blog post. Books: I'm five or six chapters into The Soldier's Scoundrel by Cat Sebastian, and after the first three chapters I stopped and bought the next two books in the series on Amazon, so, yes, am enjoying! And juuust stuck a bookmark in Matt Ruff's Lovecraft Country to start reading next. (I usually have one ebook and one physical book on the go at a given time, and I'm trying to remember to read some of the unread books I actually own in between taking out all sorts of things from the library. We'll see how that goes when I'm using the quiet study room at the library five days a week to get writing and other work done.) Books finished: Hello Forever by Sarina Bowen, a loosely connected ~sequel~ to Goodbye Paradise. Both of these m/m romances where one or both heroes have faced severe homophobia were originally published under a different name, and have been republished this year as Sarina Bowen titles. AND THEY ARE GREAT. If you are into that kind of angst, which. I am. As it turns out. I loved the way this one handled Cax's resistance to being with a guy, giving him a situation that he feels trapped by for utterly legitimate reasons, and the way his resistance gives way piece by piece (and then, as they say, all at once). <3 The Proposal by Mary Balogh, the first book of the Survivors' Club series, in which it becomes clear that this series is actually a spinoff of at least two OTHER series so now I need a family tree with all of Mary Balogh's books clearly indicated on it to figure out what ELSE I want to read because these are delightful. (Notwithstanding the occasional startling anachronism, like a heroine comparing something from which nothing escapes to a black hole. In 1819 or so. BUT WHATEVER, RECOVERY LOVE STORIES FOR EVERYONE.) Fic: Today was another day featuring the blessing of a WIP update, this time from Infinite Coffee and Protection Detail which is of course The Best. The Olds!! <3______<3 (also the endnotes say there was a huge continuity error in this chapter but I'm reading at the same pace as chapters are posting so I have totally lost track of continuity anyway so it was just delightful.) Otherwise I have six tabs open, 155 things marked for later, and 34 marked to reread. Oh and now that I have a physical copy I am slowly making my way through Not Without You, which is staggeringly beautiful and A Delight. <3 <3 <3 Fic finished: (A sampling of stuff I’ve bookmarked recently–you can see all my bookmarks at http://archiveofourown.org/users/dsudis/bookmarks) I Do (please say you want me) by ceeainthereforthat (Bucky/Steve, E, 82k) - Bucky is a professional dominant, and Steve is the son of a vice president who grew up in the public eye; they meet running together in the same DC neighborhood, and just when they're starting to actually get involved, Bucky's professional life becomes front page news. Steve proceeds to Be Maximum Steve Rogers about it and refuses to cut off contact or throw Bucky under the bus--and for the sake of PR it's decided that Steve should play out a whirlwind romance with Bucky instead, getting married (with a pre-nup guaranteeing Bucky millions of dollars upon their scheduled divorce five years later). EXCEPT GUESS WHAT THEY FALL IN FABULOUSLY KINKY LOVE. Ughhh this was so great, and I adored the pace of reveals and the way they kept edging further and further into actual intimacy. <3 <3 <3 Just Spit It Out by PorcupineGirl (Bitty/Jack, G, 2k) - What happens when you live in a first-words soulmark universe and you hear your soulmate say the words on your wrist--and then realize that YOU now need to say the words HE'S been waiting for for his entire life. And you are, say, a deeply anxious Canadian hockey robot. IT MIGHT BE DIFFICULT. But hooray for fate (and Shitty). <3 All I Ever Wanted by sevenfists (Sid/Geno, E, 10k) - A really lovely story about two dudes finally being ready to be in love with each other. And doing some high altitude training during their bye week, because Sidney Crosby.

[askaphmaine]

Event: Human/High School Au!

The Cities: Mix of Junior and Sophomores. This will list the Sophomores. (Warning: Long)

Augusta/Aaron

Personality

Quiet and not interested. While his sister still commands respect, Aaron doesn’t. The reason people leave him be is due to who his siblings are, though rumor is he’s just as terrifying as she is when angry. He’s smart enough to get through school without much help but stupid enough to try and eat non-edible things. While he’s quiet, he’s often seen dissecting school lunches to see if the food is really what it claims to be. You can pay him to bring you outside food, but he charges a fee of $5 for a single meal.

Favorite Class/Future Goal

Study Hall. He actually enjoys music and biology. Much to the shock of his classmates, he’s amazing on a violin. He dreams of becoming a musician but always answers surgeon when asked.

Least Favorite Class

Any class where the teacher just talks for hours without pause.

Concord/Connor

Personality

Much like his brother, he really cares about his education. However, he’s also someone with a lot of energy and bad ideas. Connor, along with Aaron and Monty, are the three biggest troublemakers in their grade, thought often it’s unintentional.

Favorite Class/Future Goal

Robotics. He loves to see how things work and feels a surge of pride when he gets something to correctly work. He has no clue what he wants to do but might follow engineering.

Least Favorite Class

Much like Aaron, he can’t stand classes where the teacher just talks.

Montpelier/Monty

Personality

Monty loves pranks but only if they have few to no negative consequences. Messing with someone by leaving candy everywhere? He loves it. Locking someone he doesn’t know in a locker? He’d rather someone punch him. He’s also a rough houser and can go toe to toe with Aaron and Connor when playing hockey. Everyone else is afraid of the crossfire.

Favorite Class/Future Goal

Gym. He needs to let his energy out somehow. He’s unsure of a career and hopes to figure something out soon.

Least Favorite Class

Chemistry. He tends to rush things, which leads to experiments epically failing.

Albany/Anthony

Personality

Aloof, with a ‘I’m better than you’ air, many people are shocked to learn Anthony and Hudson are brothers, though upon meeting Lance, they’re less so. Anthony sees his grades as a necessity and feels obligated to get the highest grade possible. However, he’s a bundle of nerves that fall apart at the smallest inconvenience. The few times this has happened at school, the problem either magically fixed itself (with the other person pale and terrified. Anthony assumes it’s his brothers or parents stepping in) or he finds something sweet to munch on till he feels better. He’s not sure if he has a guardian angel or not but he’s grateful.

Favorite Class/Future Goal

If asked, he’ll say math. However, he enjoys music. Not because he can play (he can’t) but because he loves listening to Aaron play. He plans on following Lance into business but wonders what it would be like to go into counseling or teaching.

Least Favorite Class

Gym. He feels like Aaron singles him out and he often leaves with a bruise somewhere on his body. His glasses somehow never break, much to his shock (Aaron never seems to aim for the face).

Dover/Courtney

Personality

Courtney ‘Dory’ is similar to her brother in many ways. She enjoys joking around and having fun more than sitting down and being lectured. She often goes to Aaron for food that doesn’t taste bad and is the sole reason he charges per meal, as she would buy one for her, one for Warren, one for Anna, and one for Mary.

Favorite Class/Future Goal

She loves any class she gets to spend time with Anna in, so mostly study hall. She hasn’t got a clue what she wants to do when she graduates.

Least Favorite Class

Anything with a long lecture.

Annapolis/Anna

Personality

More quiet than Dory, Anna is serious about grades. She wants to get into a good school so that she’ll make enough money to survive. However, Dory is unwilling to let her focus solely on school, so she has attended different parties. Her favorites are Aaron’s, because he tends to only invite quiet people who won’t bother him and just kind leaves them in his living room so he can convince his parents that he has a lot of friends.

Favorite Class/Future Goal

She loves biology, like her sister, but finds she loves history a bit more. She wants to become a historian one day. She also enjoy gym due to Aaron seemingly taking pity on her and helping her out, especially in Hockey.

Least Favorite Class

None.

Sacramento/Isabelle

Personality

Isabelle ‘Izzy’ loves being outdoors. Sitting in one place all day is hard for her but she manages good grades in spite of it. She often convinces people to tutor her and helps run theater productions. She’s a serious manager and can easily put up with any on-stage drama queens, her twin included.

Favorite Class/Future Goal

Gym. She may not be as good at hockey as Aaron, Connor, and Monty but she enjoys the challenge they provide. Part of her really wants to go into theater as a stage manager.

Least Favorite Class

She finds interesting things in all her classes, even if she finds them hard to sit through.

Los Angeles/Elizabeth

Personality

The only person who’s a bigger drama queen than Elizabeth ‘Lizzy’ is her older sister, Allison. A true theater kid, Lizzy loves the spotlight. She’s a huge fan of putting on shows and creating movies. She’s actually very good at preforming and tends to mother the other theater kids. She hates anyone who acts like theater is easy or acts like supporting rolls/stagehands/anyone behind the scenes are worthless. She actually deals with Aaron a lot due to his violin playing and has convinced him to play during one of their productions before. He hated every moment he was in the spotlight.

Favorite Class/Future Goal

Theater, multimedia, gym, and wood shop. Hey, she needs to be physically active to preform and she loved helping people make the backgrounds to her plays! She wants to either become a movie star or a broadway star.

Least Favorite Class

Much like her twin, she finds something useful and interesting in all of her classes. She tends to relate them to theater and how they’d be useful there.

[sashayed]

Hello #hockey fans. I have learned a lot about your sport since I became a serious fan 1 week ago, and now I feel ready -- since the #playoffs are upon us -- to provide my fellow #newbies with a guide to the teams involved!!!! Here without further ado, Rave Sashayed’s Super Accurate Guide to the Stanley Cup Playoff Matchups. Pick your favorite!!

Toronto Maple Leafs: Two dozen interchangeable blond teens named “Match Marstonder.”

Washington Capitals: One big yelling man (Russian) for scoring, one big yelling man (Canadian) for punching, one handsome yelling man (also Canadian) for making the other team’s goals not happen, and several others (Swedish ???) for yelling. They are all each other’s moms and they are my favorite.

WINNER: The power of narrative is generally on the side of The Big-Hearted Band of Misfit Teens, but also every 2016-17 indicator suggests that the Bad Guys Will Always Win, so the CAPS, probably.

Pittsburgh Penguins: A talented robot engages in bizarre rituals to help him lead an erratic parade of banged-up nice boys. One of them is a very beautiful French Canadian, but you will not see him in the playoffs because he got extra banged up :(, but you might see him in a suit in the audience SO who are the real winners here? Us, that’s who. On the other hand, this team made me want to sex this person, so maybe I specifically am not a winner.

Columbus Blue Jackets: The Columbus Blue Jackets could shut out every game they ever played and people would still be like “look at these scrappy little underdogs go!” I think this is because “Blue Jackets” is a very cute name for a team, like what your 4-year-old nephew would nickname a team that had a real, normal name.

WINNER: The Rust Belt

New York Rangers: Speaking of names, every Rangers player’s name was created by a Captcha generator, which is why we all have to pretend that “Ty Ronning” and “Jesper Fast” are regular things to call human beings. Spry 74-year-old Henrik Lundqvist leads this team, wearing a suit.

Montreal Canadiens: The Canadiens are also called “The Habs,” which is short for “Les Haberdashers,” because of their distinctive homemade fur hats. Carey Price, the only goalie permitted to ride a horse onto the ice nightly, has never said a single word aloud and communicates by glaring. These people traded PK Subban and then tried to be like “ohhhh we’re still friends” but I will never forgive them.

WINNER: Carey Price Has Done Nothing Wrong Ever In His Life

Boston Bruins: These dudes make me nervous. At any moment I feel they could travel to Toronto and shove all the Maple Leafs into lockers.

Ottawa Senators: INEXPLICABLY not called the Ottawa Otters??? ???? ????? ??????????? what the fuck

WINNER: SenOtters

Nashville Predators: PK IS HERE!!! PK IS SPEAKING!!! EVERYBODY SHUT UP!!!!! PK Subban chooses his game day Löoks based on “a show I used to watch, Boardwalk Empire.” The Predators are my favorite team that I don’t care about.

Chicago Blackhawks: No offense, but gross.

WINNER: PREDATORS

Minnesota Wild: Lumberjack strippers.

St. Louis Blues: I have never heard of these people.

WINNER: There are no winners here.

Calgary Flames: These guys are precious. One of them is named “Johnny Hockey.” One of them charmed me via Bananaphone. I’m a huge Calgary Flames fan, probably.

Anaheim Ducks: Once before I knew anything about hockey I was at trivia & there was a question about who played the Kings at Dodgers Stadium and someone was like “Ugh whatever, just put ‘The Mighty Ducks.’” This was the correct answer and we were all thrilled and surprised to discover they are a real team. (We did not win the trivia night.) 

WINNER: FLAMES, but maybe all of us if these two let a dog do the puck drop again.

San Jose Sharks: The Sharks have a CAT MASCOT based on a CAT who RAN ONTO THE ICE and was ADOPTED by one of the PLAYERS! The Sharks are my sweet and special boys for this reason and no other.

Edmonton Oilers: Is “Oilers” is the grossest possible name a sports team could have without being openly racist? Probably, and even if it isn’t, I hate it.

WINNER: SHARKS

[garden-of-succulents]

4, 13, 14 & 26

(asks for fanfic writers)

Gonna do this out of order because one of them needs a readmore tag.

4. name three authors that were influential to your work and tell why

Ohhhhh boy.  Ohhhhh my god. What a tough question. Okay.

1. Guy Gavriel Kay - I read The Fionavar Tapestry when I was maybe 14 and it shook the foundations of my world, devoured everything else he has available, and even though as an adult I see a lot of his limitations he shaped me so much–huge amounts of my entire praxis of moving through the world as someone with chronic, persistent, unremitting depression came from him. There was a time when I thought I wanted to write exactly like him. My sense of scope, of story, of what to hold onto and what to let go, of what language can do.

2. @dsudis - Slash fandom generally has done a lot to help with my internalized shame about sexuality, about taking what we do seriously, but I think Dira’s the person who’s inspired me most in the past few years. Because sometimes the things we feel drawn to are weird and problematic and there’s no way to make them less weird or less problematic without taking away our reasons for wanting them–so she’s an inspiration and a role model for me when it comes to navigating that fearlessly and ethically.

3. Monica Hughes - whom basically nobody knows, but I do, because she was Edmontonian and I went to elementary school in Edmonton, so her books were pushed on us a lot. She was my introduction to science fiction–while other women I know came to the genre through the misogynistic greats, my hand was held by a comforting friend who knew the land I came from and spread women through the stars for me to follow. (Sadly, she died before I ever got to meet her.)

14. easiest character to write

Andy Scarlatti, queen of my heart. It’s not that she’s me–it’s that she gets to be angry, and that feels so fucking good to write.

26. story you’re most proud of

Still possibly “Les hivers de mon enfance”? It’s the most like I think my writing should be (it’s the Guy Gavriel Kay-est OMGCP thing I’ve written). If not that, then “leave your lovers like campsites”, because it’s complicated and long and has a plot and is complete, and it those things are so hard for me to write.

13. hardest character to write

Justin Oluransi. Cut for discussion of suicide, emesis, gore/injury, trauma, feces.

(*looks at trigger list* It’s not actually that heavy of a response, I swear)

Okay so for a year during my Masters I worked in a university counselling department. (It was great–I def recommend anyone with mental illnesses to see what their counselling departments and disability offices can offer them–although ask how they handle student suicidality before you disclose if that’s something you deal with–sorry, I’m getting sidetracked)

So a lot of people would come in looking really stressed and overclocked and fragile and say, “I’m having trouble with coping. I’m in six classes and I’m on the track team and I’m president of the student business association and I’m doing great but, you know, I’m puking from stress all the time, my hair is falling out, and I haven’t slept in three days. So what I need are some tools on how to better manage my workload.”

So the thing about therapists is you’re having a real human experience–we can’t just be replaced by clever robots because the experience of being seen and subjectively experienced by another human being is really valuable. But the downside is, everyone has areas of relative strength and weakness. Some therapists are better with some issues than others.

And the thing about me is that I’ve been mentally ill, disabled, and traumatized since I was a child. There are days when walking six blocks causes me a level of pain other humans don’t get unless they have broken bones or third-degree burns. The first time my mother told me she wanted to divorce my dad I decided to repress my emotions about it for 12 hours, and my fully adult body responded by making me literally explosively shit my pants the moment the child I was caretaking left the car in the loading zone at their school. My clinical area of speciality is complex trauma, also known as “being so fucked up for so long you don’t know what normal looks like and your issues literally won’t let you function”

My area of specialization is not “basically healthy people who want coaching to achieve top performance.” I have classmates who wanted to do that and had no affinity for complex trauma. They’re different specializations.

So I would smile politely at those people and say, “Have you considered dropping part of your workload to decrease the pressure on you?” and they would say “No!” in a horrified voice and we would stare at each other in mutual incomprehension, and I would try to talk to them about sleep hygiene and grounding meditation and cognitive distortions, but in the back of my mind I was like why would you do that to yourself just for social status and achievement and to please your parents? because whatever shreds of ambition or competitiveness or achievement orientation I possess have been ground very thoroughly under humiliating years of having to accept my very strict and unforgiving limitations.

I wasn’t a good therapist for them; I don’t think I’m suited for academic environments; students like that rarely came back to me for a second session.

And I see Justin Oluransi in them a lot. Frat bro, hockey star, 4.0 GPA, coral reef, about to break, so fucking strong and ablebodied and so fucking fragile. So when I write him my instinctive response is to swaddle him–wrap him up in cotton wool, let him relax and feel less pressured, remove the burdens on him. Let him get Bs or stop playing hockey or party less often. 

Where I trip up is that he probably wouldn’t want that–he’s one of those people who probably does physical exercise because it feels good, achieves academically because it pleases and interests him, socializes because he wants to be around his fellow humans. If you gave him my ideal retreat of a quiet, cozy, solitary vacation, he’d probably go stir-crazy. 

So like… a lot of me is tempted to read this “consulting” storyline from the tweets as Ransom seeing the light, realizing that he has to gracefully bow to his limitations and not put himself through the pain and horror of med school or further academia, but… when I write him, I also want to remind myself that he wants very fundamentally different things from me; we have chosen what are essentially polar opposites in some major life values. And instead of just smugly converting him to mine, I have to temporarily slip myself into his mindset.

[mikemortgage]

Google’s chief economist talks tech backlash, fake news and taxation

TORONTO — Everywhere Google’s chief economist Hal Varian goes, people want to ask him what Google is working on.

He usually tells them “everything you can think of plus a lot more” because the tech giant has its hands in everything from internet searches to advertising, news and even autonomous vehicles.

As Google prepares to mark its 20th anniversary in Canada, Varian sat down with The Canadian Press on Wednesday to talk about the company, its role in the country and some of the technology sector’s most pressing challenges — fake news, automation, backlash against human dependence on devices and a growing debate around taxation.

What do you see as Google’s role in Canada?

Google is a huge facilitator. Canada is a country where exports are very important, particularly exports to the U.S. and so you want to make sure that your products are recognized there and the great thing about using Google for advertising is it can be so targeted. I once talked to a mathematician who built the best program in the world for a certain type of optimization. He said, “it’s a wonderful product, but there are only 100 users in the world. How do I find them?” So you type in mixed interger quadratic programming into Google and you get these nice academic papers and there’s an ad for his software. That’s specialized. The only medium you can effectively advertise on is a search medium.

Google put out a report with Deloitte this morning looking at its economic impact in Canada. Among other things, it said that Google search ads from Canadian businesses supported between $10.4 and $18.5 billion in economic activity or 112,000 to 200,000 full-time jobs. What was your big takeaway from the report?

One of the remarkable things for Canada in that report is that 35 per cent of all clicks are coming from outside of Canada. That means you are really reaching a global market and I haven’t seen that in the other reports (from other countries).

What other differences did you see between Canada and other markets?

There are probably more searches for hockey per capita than in say Hawaii.

Do you think Google should be threatened by some of the other social media players who are carving out a big advertising business themselves?

I think we are still king, but uneasy lies the head that wears the crown. We can’t be complacent about that. We keep looking at developments and we are expanding into lots of other technology areas, like autonomous vehicles, artificial intelligence and cloud computing.

Lately in Canada there has been a lot of discussion around whether technology companies should be charging and paying tax on advertising on their platforms. How do you feel about that?

I think that is up to Canada. If they draft a law that says advertising companies need to pay tax, of course we will pay. But right now, as I understand the situation, it is pretty ambiguous whether or not this tax is happening.

So it’s best left up to the government then?

Well, of course, to tax anything the government has to pass a bill or amend a bill that describes what is being taxed and how the data will be collected and how it will be remitted. You can’t just say send me a cheque.

Do you find one of the biggest challenges Google is facing is fake news?

Not so much on the ad side of things, (but) fake news on content that is trying to draw attention to itself for one reason or another. (When it comes to) people that advertise stuff that is bogus, we do a pretty good job of weeding out a lot of that stuff.

If you want to find spurious news about Hollywood gossip, you can go to the supermarket or you can go to YouTube. There’s a lot of that stuff around, but we try to control it so far as we can.

On Google News, we have a pretty carefully curated process to get people to legitimate news. It doesn’t always work. Things slip through, but by and large, it’s a pretty trustworthy sources, we think.

What is the biggest challenge facing the tech sector?

On the policy side of things, we hear the word techlash, like backlash against technology. People are saying the world is facing all these problems with fake news and hostile powers and exploitation of this and that. That is of course much more difficult to deal with because it is vague and amorphous.

Technology is changing quickly and things are happening and so there is a certain amount of anxiety, but I do believe that will be overcome as people learn the value of tech.

What should be done to help humanity overcome techlash?

You have to recognize there are changes going on. Those changes are primarily going help people live better, more productive, more useful and more stimulating lives, but you also have to build some controls over those things. It is the same with automobiles, with telephones, with steam engines.

What role do you think Google should have in the techlash?

The very first thing is understanding it and once we think we have an understanding of it, we think about policies that might be helpful in dealing with issues that could arise.

You have been working on a paper that recently touched on this and labour. Can you talk a bit about the major takeaways?

We’re going to see a significant decline in the labour force in the next 20 or 30 years basically because the baby boomers are retiring and what that means is you’ve got to produce more output to provide consumption opportunities for all those people. With the labour force declining, we are in good shape compared to countries like Japan, China, Korea, Taiwan, Germany, Italy, Spain, where they’re seeing quite significant declines. Without technology, without some increase in productivity, we’re in big trouble.

With those labour declines and Google looking into automation, will robots take over the world?

Robots are going to augment human labour for the most part. That is true with all of the technological advances, despite the anxiety that goes along with them. Augmenting labour gives you more jobs and less work, which is what most people are seeking.

This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.

from Financial Post https://ift.tt/2NagVkX via IFTTT Blogger Mortgage Tumblr Mortgage Evernote Mortgage Wordpress Mortgage href="https://www.diigo.com/user/gelsi11">Diigo Mortgage